Reducing Risks and Maximizing Benefits of Aquaculture – NACA’s Role

Contribution from Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asis Pacific (NACA) Bangkok, Thailand

Introduction

Aquaculture is one of the fastest growing primary food producing sectors today. Aquaculture in Asia and the Pacific region is now contributing more than 90% of global aquaculture production – about half of all fish consumed worldwide - and provides a very important source of livelihood for rural communities. Aquaculture, as an enterprise and industry, faces several risks including infectious diseases, food safety concerns, environmental degradation, social, trade and economic issues.  Though not a risk per se, another key feature of the sector that makes risk management often difficult is the small scale nature of operators and operations. Most aquaculture in Asia is undertaken by large numbers of relatively small scale farmers. The biggest challenge, therefore, is to empower small scale farmers to farm responsibly and at the same time preserve these ecologically fragile systems for future generations.  There is no simple answer to this challenge. Small scale farmers are too important in overall production terms to ignore and they should be part of the solution to many of today’s risks facing the industry.  This is only achievable through their involvement and empowerment.

What is NACA?

Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia Pacific (NACA), as an inter-governmental organisation of 18 member states in the Asia-Pacific region, has been supporting sustainable and responsible aquaculture for rural development. Key risks facing the sector at national and regional levels are being addressed through NACA’s five thematic (sustainable farming systems; aquatic animal health; climate change; food safety, quality and certification; genetics and biodiversity) and three cross cutting (education and training; information and communication; gender) work programs. The objective of each of the work programs is to reduce risks to acceptable levels and develop management interventions to sustain the sector for the benefit of fish farmers and rural communities.

NACA’s work centres around research and development questions of how best to develop more sustainable production systems as a longer term outcome. We believe that increasing sustainability (the process) is really about changing behaviours; in this case the behaviours of these large numbers of small scale aquaculture farmers. Our work to date has sought to guide, assist and support such behavioural change; for instance through the use of better management practices (BMPs) as part of a broader process of supporting such change. Therefore our efforts are increasingly centered around understanding how to shape or better guide such behavior changes as part of a wider approach of shifting unsustainable practices to more sustainable ones. 

Here, we provide some insight on the risk management approach (adoption of BMPs through cluster/group approach) promoted by NACA over the last ten years in some of its member states. This approach supports building capacity and awareness of farmers and involves them in the (a) process of identification of risk factors to the sustainability of their operations, (b) development of interventions in the form of BMPs, (c) promoting adoption of BMPs through a cluster/group management approach and (d) ensuring market access through participation in group certification programs.

What are BMPs?

BMPs in the aquaculture context outline norms for responsible farming of aquatic animals. These are management interventions developed to address the identified risk factors while its implementation is generally voluntary; they are not a standard for certification. Implementation of the BMPs by small scale farmers will help translate principles of responsible farming into reality and ensure the flow of benefits to the farmers, environment and society.

Cluster/group management in simple terms can be defined as collective planning, decision making and implementation of crop activities by a group of farmers in a cluster through participatory approach in order to accomplish their common goal (e.g. reduce risks and maximize returns, achieve economy of scale). 

Aquaculture Certification

Aquaculture certification is increasingly becoming important for market access. FAO with partners like NACA and national governments have recently produced Technical Guidelines for Aquaculture Certification (2011), which outlines the norms for a credible certification program. Group certification is a methodology and approach that allows a group of small scale aquaculture farmers to join together towards effective management and functioning, besides sharing certification costs among the group members. This enables them to become competitive in the market with the little resources they have. Implementation of BMPs through this approach (cluster management) will help each member to achieve compliance with standards set by international agencies, public/private certification bodies and trading partners.

NACA’s Experience

NACA’s experience with BMP promotion work in India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam in relation to key aquaculture commodities, and that in Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Lao PDR in relation to culture-based fisheries (CBF) clearly suggests that BMPs improve yields, safety and quality of products. This is achieved by taking into consideration aquatic animal health and welfare, food safety, as well as environmental and socio-economic sustainability. Key BMP and cluster management work carried out in the region include: (a) Shrimp program in India in collaboration with Marine Products Export Development Authority  MPEDA and National Centre for Sustainable Aquaculture NaCSA, since the year 2000 and ongoing; (b) shrimp farming work in Aceh, Indonesia under the Asia Development Bank ADB project (2005-2009) in collaboration with FAO and IFC; (c) Mekong catfish farming work in Vietnam supported by AusAid (2008-2010) in collaboration with Department of Primary Industries  DPI, Victoria and Research Institute for Aquaculture  RIA2 and Cantho University CTU, Vietnam; (d) WWF-supported work in Thailand and India in collaboration with the Department of Fisheries, Thailand and MPEDA, India, respectively; and (e) Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research ACIAR supported work of strengthening networking and information sharing amongst BMP project implementers in the region.  In addition NACA has also developed BMPs for the farming practices on CBF in Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Lao PDR, under the auspices of ACIAR. More about NACA’s work on these lines can be found in our website (www.enaca.org).

Conclusion

Overall, aquaculture BMP adoption in the region is increasing – which illustrates that successful changes are possible even for small scale farmers as described above. We believe that it is this increased understanding about how to better promote such behavior changes that will be of increasing importance in the future moves to more sustainable practices. Additionally, we have also examined farmer behavior changes linked to our evolving understanding of what the key drivers in such change processes are (e.g. catastrophic disease outbreaks, tsunami disaster recovery and/or market linked price incentives).

By and large, we note that this work has shown that even small scale farmers (who are the back bone of aquaculture in Asia Pacific) can, and will change, when provided with appropriate enabling mechanisms, access to scientific information and support at the ground level. Risk-free aquaculture is impossible, but NACA’s work has shown that risks can be significantly minimised and sustainable aquaculture promoted for the benefit of mankind.