GAA
Global Aquaculture Alliance Conference
It has been a very informative and interesting week out here in Seattle at the 9thannual Global Aquaculture Alliance Conference. The Global Aquaculture Alliance (GAA) is a group of members of the seafood industry from all different aspects of the business. There are Processors, Retailers, Foodservice Fortune 500 companies, Distributors and many scientists and industry professionals; all dedicated to the continuation of sound aquaculture practices for farm raised species all over the globe.
The largest topic at this meeting has been about trying to understand the “true” meaning of the word “sustainability.” The global marketplace today has many concerns with respect to aquaculture. The environmental aspects, the social aspects - workplace conditions, underage labor, the food safety issues of producing healthy and wholesome foods and the traceability from the individual farms through to the processors and then to the distribution chains. We learned that there are 4 major components of aquaculture which need to have standards and monitoring in order to be deemed a sustainable system: The Hatchery, the Individual Farms or Groupings of Farms, the Feed Mills and the Processors. Each group along the way must be committed to creating a sustainable way to bring the end product to the table while following the Best Practices set out by the GAA and others.
The conference focused on many different seafood products that are being farmed today. Salmon, Tilapia, Pangasius, Cod, Cobia, Trout, Catfish and Shrimp to name just a few. As a whole, the group could vote on different questions put forward and automatically see the results with the new technology that the conference utilized (a smart board questionnaire). The group as a whole stated that we need a single certifying agency that all aquaculture can adhere to (presently there are many certifying agencies), and that the farmed products be wholesome and chemical-free. The group all agreed that the consumers are demanding that the seafood they eat be harvested in a way that does not hurt the surrounding environment and that the businesses involved have a strong sense of social responsibility. Interestingly enough, the group also agreed that while the consumers want these aspects in their farmed food the consumers were not willing to pay more for it!!!
As a buyer of many farmed species, I must say that it was a real pleasure to come together with my customers, vendors and notable scientific officials, to discuss the real time happenings of seafood aquaculture. There is an enormous amount of work still to be done; however there have been many successes as well. In two weeks I’ll be off to the real farms to take what I learned in “Aquaculture Class” this week. I will be actually speaking with the shrimp farmers in Thailand to see what is really happening at the farm level - stay tuned……..