Blueyou Consulting has announced the Selva Shrimp program, an initiative to sustainably source black tiger prawns.
The program combines ground-level aquaculture improvement work in Southeast Asia with business-to-business services for sustainable shrimp sourcing.
The main focus of the program is in Kamao, in southern Vietnam.
Marketing for Selva Shrimp products will focus on Australia, Europe and North America, and the food service sector is a major target for the prawns.
“We believe that our initiative has made a significant step towards achieving the sustainability goals the market has been seeking,” local project manager for the Selva Shrimp, Anh Pham said.
“Our major goal is to build relationships with the farming communities and local authorities to foster the sustainable development of this unique shrimp farming sector- and we hope that our efforts in Vietnam are rewarded in the marketplace.”
According to Blueyou, raising prawns in integrated mangrove forest farms is the most sustainable method. By preserving a functional ecosystem of mangrove forests and aquatic species, prawns are bred without the use of feed, fertilisers or chemicals.
The ecosystem depends wholly on its own natural productivity. The forest is a source of natural food for prawns.
“There are already prawns in this ecosystem naturally. But what the farmers started to do was just add a few more of this variety of prawns, the black tiger prawns in the system.
"They just eat all the nutrients, like the leaves, and come down from the river systems and they just clean the water and that’s how they grow,” programme manager Australia & Asia-Pacific of Blueyou Urs Baumgartner told Food Magazine.
Baumgartner explained mangrove systems are traditional farm systems that have always been in use. In Vietnam they were implemented after the Vietnam war. The government decided to capitalise on this type of farming, and farmers discovered an additional income sources.
But with Vietnam being an intense farming country, disease became an issue. Also, in the last few years there has been pressure to cut the mangroves down.
“That’s when the idea came to work with this farm and the local government to become aware of the importance of the mangroves and the system to create an initiative to stop them from further cutting these trees,” he said.
The Selva Shrimp criteria are subject to an independent on-site verification process. It will undergo regular monitoring and independent verification by a third-party auditing body.
The shrimp farm criteria centres on better farming systems and the preservation of mangroves. The chain of custody criteria protects the integrity of the supply chain and the traceability of harvested shrimp.
The criteria include compliance with all legislation, allowance for organic natural fertilisers and compost from within the farm boundaries and group approval for small-scale farmers.
Baumgartner said there is an authority that should control the forests called the Forest Management Board in Vietnam. They are like forest police who make sure farmers do not destroy the forests. But he added that while strict laws are in place, enforcement of the laws is not effective.