Sustainable farmed fish will be the topic of many discussions at next week's International Boston Seafood Show. It has been a thorn in the side of buyers who have to discern between different certification programs, from the World Wildlife Fund to the Global Aquaculture Alliance to Friend of the Sea. Some buyers will be relieved to hear the Marine Stewardship Council is reconsidering its 2006 decision to exclude farmed fish as part of its sustainability certification.
The MSC announced on its Web site late last week that repeated requests for a sustainable farmed seafood program from the group's stakeholders, in addition to movement within the aquaculture industry to develop sustainability standards, made the London-based organization re-evaluate its stance.
"It is in response to these developments and also to the continued and growing need for aquaculture certification that the board of the MSC has agreed to commission detailed and comprehensive stakeholder analysis to review its 2006 decision and to ask if the MSC should seek to get involved in aquaculture certification," the group stated in a press release.
The announcement comes at an ideal time. Aquaculture supplies nearly half the fish that humans consume worldwide, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The squabbling between the World Wildlife Fund and the Global Aquaculture Allianceâ??s Best Aquaculture Practices program has done little else except confuse buyers who are still trying to weed out the differences among certain sustainability programs. (For buyers interested in reading more on the topic see SeaFood Business' January Top Story, "Farm focus" by Contributing Editor Lisa Duchene.)
While the MSC certainly has its critics on both sides of the table, the group has improved the transparency of its certification and chain-of-custody programs. I applaud the MSC's leadership for revisiting the decision, not just for the current stakeholders, but also for future participants. Seafood buyers have enough hoops to jump through to source product; purchasing certified sustainable farmed fish shouldn't be an onerous task.
Best regards,
Fiona Robinson
Editor in Chief
SeaFood Business
