(pangasius-vietnam.com) At the end of May 2012, Centre for Marinelife Conservation and Community Development (MCD) held the conference on “Assessing the capacity of commercial pangasius aquaculture small holders in applying social and environmental standards in Vietnam” with an aim to share its study and get consultations from relevant holders.
The conference was attended by representatives from MARD, WWF, Oxfam Novib and VINAFIS’ International Collaborating Centre for Aquaculture and Fisheries Sustainability.
Currently, large-scale farms of commercial pangasius owned by fish processors, big farmers and farmers linked closely with processing plants represented a major part in pangasius production chain. To improve the quality and prestige of Vietnam fish products and enhance export to global markets, many companies and fish farmers actively get to know and comply with international quality standards such as GlobalGAP, BMP, SQF 1000CM…However, small holders have an important role in pangasius production, they provided 30 – 40% of raw fish for processing in 2011. This is also the group which meets many difficulties in applying aquaculture standards due to traditional and spontaneous farming activities following market’s demand.
The study is based on standards set by Pangasius Aquaculture Dialogue (PAD) and mainly focuses on three out of seven standards, including “legal framework”, “water pollution and waste management” and “social responsibility/user conflicts”.
MCD’s objective is to figure out the capacity to apply social and environmental standards of small-scale farms; then suggest measures to help farmers solve problems; and raise their awareness on Good Aquaculture Practices (GAP).
At the conference, representatives of Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of An Giang and Dong Thap provinces highlighted challenges that confront local small farmers: declining infrastructure and backward farming techniques; difficulties in upgrading to meet farming requirements due to small superficies; banks’ limited credits leading to serious lack of money to keep business; rising input costs and volatile prices; duplicative and inappropriate policies on control of feed, drugs and food safety; lack of farmers’ awareness on high quality farmed-pangasius.
MCD shows that small farms in An Giang and Dong Thap have low capacity of applying social and environmental standards. Therefore, to help them get out of difficulties, it is necessary to join efforts of all stakeholders in pangasius production chain, government’s favorable policies and changes of fish farmers themselves.