FISHERIES COOPERATIVES
International Capacity Development Program on Aquaculture and Value Chains
Aquaculture production must be considered in relation to all components along the entire value chain.
NEDAC Training Centre Bangkok (NTCB) organized the International Capacity Development Program on Aquaculture and Value Chains in partnership with Aquaculture and Aquatic Resources Management (AARM) program, School of Environment, Resources and Development (SERD), Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok on 17 July 2020 via Zoom Conference Platform. Prof. K.R. Salin, Chair of the Aquaculture Program of AIT was the key speaker with his technical presentation. Growing in world population results in increasing of food consumption including seafood and aquaculture-made products. Fisheries and other resources such as land and water have been fully or over exploited to meet high seafood demand. To ensure food security, it is time to focus more on value chains analysis and development.
Chief Guest of the meeting were Dr. Rajeev Ranjan, Federal Secretary, Department of Fisheries, Govt. of India, and Ms. Suchitra Durai, Ambassador of India to Thailand. In the opening session, an overview of the fisheries and aquaculture development in India was presented by Dr. Rajeev Ranjan. Key resource person, Dr. K.R. Salin, Chair of AARM Program, SERD, AIT presented the overview of global aquaculture value chains especially Asia-Pacific region. “Green and blue economies for sustainable aquaculture contribute to better food safety and quality of the seafood we produce”, said Dr. Salin. “Sustainable aquaculture production systems including Biofloc or Aquamimicry systems, Aquaponics and Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA), rice-fish/prawn farm, reservoir aquaculture are all useful to enhance food production while being friendly to the environment”, he added.
Technical session started with the presentation on Marine Food Trade by Mr. Boku Nakano from Co-op Trade Japan Ltd., Overseas Division of Japanese Consumers’ Co-operative Union (JCCU), Tokyo. Dr. R. R. Singh, Assistant Vice President of CPF(India) Private Ltd., who presented the salient feature of the Shrimp value chain. The closing presentation featured some useful case studies on Strengthening Entrepreneurship of Small Aquaculture Producers by Dr. Tipparat Pongthanapanich, Aquaculture Officer from FAO RAP, Bangkok.
Sam Roi Yod Shrimp Farmers Cooperatives and the other cooperatives in Nakhon Nayok, Thailand and Pangasinan, Philippines mentioned during the presentation of Dr. Salin and Dr. Tipparat are some of the excellent examples for other cooperatives towards transformation as those cooperatives are regularly developed the cooperatives by linking to other clusters along the chain of aquaculture production. Those cooperatives not only provide inputs but also skills and capacity development to its members.
More on this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbH_FpqJmrM&t=539s
Presentation by Chief Guest, Dr. Rajeev Ranjan, Federal Secretary, Department of Fisheries, India: https://www.nedac.info/pdf/Secretary-Aquaculture-and-value-chain.pdf
Presentation by key resource person, Dr. K.R. Salin, Chair of AARM Program, SERD, AIT: https://www.nedac.info/pdf/Aquaculture_NEDAC_SALIN.pdf