Progress report for
Fisheries and Shrimp Aquaculture Improvement in Asia
Achievement at a glance
ASIC has begun to establish itself as a strong regional NGO in Southeast Asia.At this point in time, ASIC is working primarily with farmers from Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia to assess their current status and develop improvement plans so that these farms can achieve an ASIC Yellow and/or ASIC Green. So far, approximately 100 farms have been verified as ASIC Yellow.
This past October, ASIC announced a partnership with Minh Phu, Seafood Watch and SGS to support small farmers in Vietnam. The program is seeking to target 20,000 small scale farmers to help them move towards the ASIC green level.
In February, ASIC identified over 100 farmers in Indonesia working under the ATINA Eco-Shrimp program who have been assessed using the ASIC shrimp protocols. Improvement plans were developed and shared with over 12 farms.
In April, ASIC hosted stakeholder workshops and trainings in Can Tho, Vietnam. Training was done with ASIC partners MCD and ICAFIS regarding the ASIC protocol so that these stakeholders are adequately prepared to train farmers in these protocols. ASIC also hosted a Social and Gender workshop with 17 stakeholders in Vietnam to discuss the development of social and gender standards.
ASIC recently signed a partnership contract with the Oxfam GRAISEA 2 project so ASIC will continue to engage and assist shrimp farmers as they move towards environmental and social sustainability.
Challenges faced in implementation
ASIC's primary challenge has been funding constraints. A lack of funding meant that ASIC could only hire minimal staff to carry out its activities, which limited what ASIC was able to do logistically. ASIC recently finalized a partnership with the Oxfam GRAISEA 2 project which will potentially ease the financial burden and enable ASIC to carry out more farmer trainings and assessments as well as build partnerships with entrepreneurs, buyers and other private sector actors throughout the supply chain.Additionally, the ASIC Fisheries Improvement Protocol has been stalled. Recent efforts have been made to reconvene the Steering Committee in order to finalize the Protocol and take steps to begin fishery assessments and improvements.
Beneficiaries
The beneficiaries are farmers, processors and other workers in seafood supply chains. Additionally, ASIC's activities benefit the seafood supply chain as a whole by promoting traceability and sustainability.