The Sultanate of Oman, with a coast line of 2092 km, pristine at that, and a large extent of land area is embarking on an ambitious aquaculture development program, primarily coastal, for food security and generation of employment opportunities as well as earning export income, targeting the adjacent countries in the region. The government has already taken many preliminary steps towards this development strategy and is determined to make it sustainable and environmentally friendly and most of all not repeat the mistakes that had occurred, too often elsewhere.
Among the steps taken to meet its strategic plans it has already identified coastal sites in eight regions, having taken into consideration all relevant climatic, topographical, water quality characteristics and social issues, to be allocated for aquaculture development in each, and made this information available in the Atlas of Suitable Sites for Aquaculture Projects, Sultanate of Oman. In addition, the government has custom built a state of the art Aquaculture Center, which will coordinate the envisaged activities and act as the main research provider, including demonstration units, and proceeded to formulate guidelines for prospective investors to bit for the proposed sites, spelt out in the Investment Guidelines. The aquaculture centre has proceeded to prepare and distribute information profile booklets on species suitable for the designated areas.
As a prelude the Sultanate of Oman convened the first ever conference on aquaculture, “International Conference on Sustainable Aquaculture Development in the Sultanate of Oman- Investment Opportunities”, which brought together specialists in various sectors from all over the globe (Australia, Italy-FAO, Norway, US, UK, New Zealand, Vietnam etc.), prospective local and foreign investors on 10/11th of December in Muscat. The aquaculture development strategy was floated at this Conference. The Conference was presided by His Excellency the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries Wealth, Dr Fuad Jaffer Al-Sajwani, and the government’s commitment to the proposed development was most evident by the fact that his Excellency was in attendance throughout the two days of the conference and led the final discussions sessions. The keynote speaker at the conference was the former Director General of NACA, Professor Sena S De Silva, who spoke on “Current trends in commercial aquaculture in Asia & relevance to emerging aquaculture nations”.
Global shrimp production as well as trading values and volumes have grown significantly in the past 20 years. With this rapid growth, there has been a concurrent and increasing demand for improved sustainability of shrimp aquaculture, social acceptability, and improved quality and safety of products produced by the sector.
The Consortium on Shrimp Farming and the Environment was formed in 1999, through a partnership of the World Bank, NACA, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and joined more recently by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The objective of this global program was to identify issues around shrimp farming and broadly advise on better management of the shrimp farming sector. The consortium supported a wide range of case studies and stakeholder consultations concerning various shrimp farming issues, with a global scope, bringing together a unique set of experiences on shrimp farming development, and an information base for future responsible development.
This web page presents the collaborative work of NACA, the World Bank, WWF, FAO and UNEP and other international and national partners. The information presented on this web page comes from the collaboration among many stakeholders - governments, industry, researchers and NGOs - across the world. A major output from this collaboration has been the development of The International Principles for Responsible Shrimp Farming.
International Principles for Responsible Shrimp Farming
The outcome from the Consortium program has been incorporated into the International Principles for Responsible Shrimp Farming. These principles address the technical, environmental, social and economic issues associated with shrimp farming, attempting to provide an overarching international framework for improving the sustainability of the shrimp farming industry. The principles were presented at FAO Committee on Fisheries: Sub- Committee on Aquaculture in September 2006, and welcomed by the delegates of the meeting. The Consortium program and the principles, it is hoped, will pave the way for a more common vision of how partners can work together for a responsible shrimp farming on a global scale. Click on the cover to download the principles from the publications section.
Certification can be one way forward for ensuring environmental sustainability, social equity and food safety of aquaculture products. Responding to the recommendation form FAO Committee on Fisheries Sub-Committee on Aquaculture held in India in 2006, FAO and NACA initiated the work, in collaboration with relevant partners and stakeholders, on developing international guidelines on aquaculture certification, through a credible and transparent process.
'BMPs' refer to better management practices. Experience has shown that well designed and implemented BMPs can support producers to i) increase efficiency and productivity by reducing the risk of shrimp health problems, (ii) reduce or mitigate the impacts of farming on the environment, (iii) improve food safety and quality of shrimp farm product and iv) improve the social benefits from shrimp farming and its social acceptability and sustainability.
Thai shrimp exports to the EU remains low, constituting only 4% of the total shrimp export. The project is aim to improve quality of shrimp produced by small-scale shrimp farmers through adaptation of BMPs to increase their participation in the EU export market. Major project activities will include secondary data collection, a comprehensive questionnaire survey, stakeholder workshops and training, and finally, production of outreach materials and their dissemination to network members and other stakeholders.
This ACIAR-supported project will promote the development and dissemination of BMPs that will assist small holder farmers. A robust regional mechanism for networking and exchange of information on BMPs will be established. The development of a BMP section of the NACA website has been undertaken as an initiative under this project.
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