GOAL 2014: Waste, abuses highlight aquafeed forum

A waste-not-want-not theme played throughout the Aquafeed Sustainability Forum, the pre-conference workshop at the Global Aquaculture Alliance’s (GAA) Global Outlook for Aquaculture Leadership (GOAL) conference on Tuesday in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

A number of speakers addressed the myriad challenges facing the aquaculture industry’s No. 1 cost input during the workshop, including Dawn Purchase of the Marine Conservation Society, who urged attendees not to waste the resources we have. “Let’s maximize their benefit,” she said.

That was a sentiment echoed throughout the day by other fish feed experts who addressed everything from slave labor to soybeans. Anton Immink, global aquaculture director at Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP), briefed attendees on the progress of the organization’s new Supplier Roundtable efforts, a program intended to review the risks and opportunities for the supply chain to engage in efforts to maximize efficiencies in the fish feed industry.

SFP, said Immink, is working with the International Fish Feed Organization (IFFO), supporting Fishery Improvement Projects (FIPs) and expanding the Supplier Roundtable efforts, largely because SFP “has no interest in leading the process,” preferring to defer to the industry. He cited the work of retailer Morrisons as a supply-chain lead in a FIP involving nearby Ben Tre, Vietnam’s, forage fisheries.

Andrew Mallison, director general at IFFO, said the fish feed industry has historically been a “remote area” with marine ingredients “even further away” from the industry’s focus. But that is all changing because feed, he said, is a “critical part to global food security.” Marine ingredients, he added, may be a continually declining percentage of aquafeed formulations, “but we still have to get it right.” He estimated that 35 percent of marine ingredients in fish feed are trimmings, a promising sign.

The other hot topic during the workshop was social welfare, which comes on the heels of multiple media reports involving forced labor in the harvest of forage fishes, most notably the situation in Thailand. Of the five major fish feed supply-chain links (fishing boats, feed plants, feed mills, fish farms and processing plants), GAA’s Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) program covers the last four. Dan Lee, BAP standards coordinator, noted “massive questions at the start of the chain” in light of the much-publicized Environmental Justice Foundation report that found widespread abuses of migrant workers in Thailand’s fishing industry. The Global Sustainable Seafood Initiative, he noted, must expand to social welfare. “Social components need to be ‘baked in’ to FIPs” as well, he added.

Katrina Nakamura of the Sustainability Incubator spoke about her organization’s Labor Safe Screen, which helps buyers identify key suppliers, verifies due diligence in rooting out human rights abuses and provides options if high risk is found. The issue of forced labor at sea is not exclusive to Thailand, she said. “It’s a globalization/migration problem,” she said. Nevertheless, Nakamura detailed the findings of 596 interviews with workers in the Thailand fishmeal industry: 94 percent have no working contract, 80 percent of the workers are undocumented (with 50 to 90 percent of the workers Burmese) and recruitment often involves workers paying 90 to 200 days of wages just to get a job. Seventeen percent of the workers claimed to have fished under “forced conditions.”

Lastly, Libby Woodhatch of the United Kingdom’s Seafish organization, said September 2015 is the target for the launch of its Responsible Fishing Scheme standards, which she called the “perfect tool to enhance reputation management.”