Vietnam to establish shrimp alliance

Cà Mau province teamed up with Private Sector Development Committee, SeafoodWatch Program and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to hold the Business Matching for fishery companies.

On 17 June Cà Mau People’s Committee cooperated with Private Sector Development Committee, Seafood Watch Program and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to hold the Business Matching for fishery companies and signed to join a alliance of producing sustainable and organic shrimp.

The alliance of sustainable and organic shrimp was officially established on this day.

Vice Chairman of Cà Mau People’s Committee Lê Văn Sử said that shrimp sector was facing challenges in searching markets and satisfying consumers’ demanding requirements for organic and environmentally friendly shrimp products.

Once participating in the alliance, Cà Mau will boost the chain production, build global certified cultured shrimp farms and promote the community surveillance in this sector.

To introduce new access to Vietnam’s shrimp sector for its sustainable development and market satisfaction, Mr Josh Madeira, an expert of SeafoodWatch, Senior Manager of Ocean Conservation Policy, MBA, advised that suppliers must satisfy environmental criteria when accessing this standard, and then adopt features of law, feed, traceability, environment protection to impose requirements on cultured shrimp farmers.

Private farmers can apply these features in a simple way in accordance with their own management method while Seafood Watch will take samples from their cultured shrimp farms and profiles from processing companies for checking.

If shrimp meet requirements, they will be granted “green card” for the US consumers to make their choice. Besides, in Josh Madeira’s opinion, consumers of North America, Europe, and Asia put flavor, freshness, health benefits and food safety first when buying seafood.

At the event of establishment of Sustainable and Organic Vietnamese shrimp Alliance, large shrimp enterprises, shrimp cooperatives, farmers, and technology companies raised their common voice and agreed to participate in the Alliance.