July 14, 2020

GAA restates commitment to aquaculture best practices after CIWF's upgrade 'demand'

The Global Aquaculture Alliance defended its stance on its commitment to promote best practices in animal health and welfare, following the launch of a campaign by Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) that demands the improvement of the animal welfare standards of five seafood certification programmes including GAA's BAP (Best Aquaculture Practices).

"Though we appreciate Compassion in World Farming's suggestions for improvements in fish welfare, care must be taken in imposing broad guidelines that might cause unintended consequences given the complexities of each species and region", said GAA President and Founder Dr. George Chamberlain in a blog posted on GAA's website on Monday, July 13.

GAA said it has cooperated with CIWF, answering questionnaires and providing background on the animal welfare component of the BAP standards.

One point of contention that GAA cited is CIWF's desire to see species-specific maximum stocking densities. GAA, however, pointed out that such standards must account for the wide range of culture systems and management controls around the world. "Consider shrimp farming, where highly sustainable intensive farms are being developed with advanced controls for animal health, water and sediment quality, feeding and harvesting. While the densities are higher in these systems than in conventional ponds, stress, disease, and mortality are greatly reduced", GAA said.

Chamberlain also said that GAA "shares CIWF's aspiration of adapting specific humane slaughter methods for each aquaculture species", adding that "[i]n fact, we would broaden that aspiration to include various sizes of each species. However, this is a journey that requires time for sound science and commercial validation".

GAA informed that at present, Issue 5.0 of the BAP Seafood Processing Standard requires animals to be rendered insensible prior to humane slaughter, in line with the methods such as those recommended by the OIE (World Organisation for Animal Health).

Moreover, GAA-in collaboration with the Responsible Aquaculture Foundation and with support from the Open Philanthropy Fund-has begun reviewing published literature, engaging research studies, developing online education modules, and awarding prizes to innovative leaders in this field. "As new information is developed and validated, BAP standards are continually revised and updated", it stressed.

GAA encouraged CIWF to be more actively involved in the BAP standards development and improvement process, including the public comment period that all BAP standards are required to undergo, as well as its pre-competitive discussions on animal health and welfare.

BAP is the world's largest and most comprehensive third-party aquaculture certification programme, with standards encompassing environmental responsibility, social accountability, food safety, and animal health and welfare. Currently, there are more than 2,400 BAP-certified processing plants, farms, hatcheries and feed mills in 35 countries.