As a means to stay on top of the latest challenges faced by the aquaculture industry, the Global Aquaculture Alliance (GAA) has concocted an 11 question survey meant to delve into the intricacies and unknowns of antibiotic use in tilapia farming.
An invitation to take the survey, released on 12 June, was delivered to 125 Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) certified tilapia farms and processing plants located in China, Columbia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Mexico, Thailand and Vietnam; however, even farms that are not BAP certified can participate in the survey by using the link below. To ensure anonymity, no names or geographic information will be collected from survey, the GAA assured.
[Take the survey: http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07eazqr86ai9jzm4ul/a00jiapfkpgw/greeting]
The results tendered by the survey will serve to inform the ever-evolving BAP program – BAP crafters look forward to obtaining first-hand information concerning the usage of antimicrobials in tilapia farming, specifically those listed by the World Health Organization (WHO) as critical to human health.
Per the GAA: “Some experts feel that anti-microbials that are WHO-listed as critical to human health should be excluded from use in tilapia farming. Others feel that these antibiotics are critical tools for disease treatment and animal welfare. Thus, GAA requests your confidential feedback to guide the decision about how to deal with the use of antimicrobials that are WHO-listed as critical in the tilapia specific section of the BAP Finfish and Crustacean Farm Standards.”
By year’s end, the GAA may modify – subject to the survey’s outcome – the tilapia-specific section of the BAP finfish and crustacean farm standards to exclude the use of antimicrobials listed by the WHO as critical to human health.
