From 9 to 11 May, 2016, the International Collaborating Centre for Aquaculture & Fisheries Sustainability (ICAFIS) and Oxfam Vietnam collaborated with Agriculture and Rural Development Department of Ca Mau, Bac Lieu and Soc Trang to organize the workshops on the implementation plan of the project “Sustainable & Equitable Shrimp Production and Value Chain Development in Vietnam-Susv” in each province.
The SusV workshop was organized in Ca Mau province
The project site is located in Ca Mau, Bac Lieu and Soc Trang province, the project lasts for 48 months with the total budget of 2.5 million Euro, The EU contribute 80% of project budget, Oxfam and ICAFIS play as the project co-funders as well as the project implementators. The project beneficiaries are small-scale shrimp producers, SME processors, other actors in shrimp value chain, local authorities and communities.
The workshop in Bac Lieu province
The project has four objectives including:
Specific Objective 1: Participatory Social Impact Assessment (p-SIA) and Biodiversity Environment Impact Assessment (B-EIA) criteria of Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) standards will be adopted by shrimp producers and CSR norms are practiced by shrimp processors, to minimize the social and environmental footprint of commercial aquaculture.
Specific Objective 2: Vietnamese small scale shrimp producers and SME shrimp processors have access to adequate finance and improved production efficiency.
Specific Objective 3: Small scale shrimp producers are empowered to have a stronger voice in negotiation with other actors in the value chain.
Specific Objective 4: Government’s credit policies targeting aquaculture/shrimp producers are promoting SCP and are designed effectively to support the development of the shrimp VC
The SusV workshop was organized in Soc Trang province
The workshops have attracted the full attendance of various stakeholders as the precentative of 30 cooperatives/farmer groups in three provinces, shrimp processors as Minh Phu Seafood Corp, Viet Uc seafood, CP corp, Thanh Long, Quoc Viet, Thien Phu, Au Vung, Ut Xi, Vina Clean Food, Nam Mien Trung and Viettel Telecom Corp, the local authorities as People’s committee at province/district/commune level, Department of Planning and Investment, Agriculture and Rural Development department, Sub-department of Fisheries, agriculture & aquaculture extension centers, Agro-forestry-fishery quality assurance department…
Mr. Le Van Quang - Minh Phu Seafood’s chairman was speaking the workshop in Ca Mau province
At the workshops, after the presentative from Oxfam Vietnam and ICAFIS presented the project implementation plan, the attendances had shared their own experiences and contributed useful recommendations in order to develop shrimp value chain to be more sustainable and equitable.
A farmer group leader was sharing their own experiences at the SusV workshop
As a part of cooperation among ICAFIS and Viettel Telecom Corp, in the workshops, the representative of the Viettel Telecom Corp introduced the service “Tom Khoe – the information channel for shrimp industry”, the service provides information on shrimp price, market, technologies, disease alerting news and help to connect the actors in shrimp value chain. The shrimp producers can access those information in three ways including: (i) the service website at http://tomkhoe.vn/ , (ii) Using the service app on smartphones or (iii) Receiving the SMS messages. All attendants highly appreciated the service and they hope that the service will be introduced to more shrimp producers so that they can access the useful information source.
The Representative of Viettel Telecom corp was introducing the service “Tom khoe”
At the end of workshops, all attendants showed their commitment to collaborate together to implement the project successfully in coming months.
Writer: Vu Thuy - ICAFIS
