The hypermarket operator Tesco Lotus and five partners have signed a contract farming agreement to acquire shrimp directly from Thai producers.
The retailer plans to buy more than 2,000 tonnes of white shrimp every year at a satisfactory price from farm cooperatives, bypassing middlemen.
The cooperatives comprise: Chanthaburi Shrimp Farmers, Khung Kraben Fishery, Bang Pakong Shrimp Farming, Trat Yangyuen and Sam Roi Yot-Pran Buri Shrimp Raisers.
The Federation of Shrimp Farming Cooperatives of Thailand will help set production targets, marketing plans, quality control and delivery.
Bangkok Bank will provide financial support for farmers in the cooperatives, covering about 1,200 families, and Poe-ma International Insurance Broker will provide insurance coverage for shrimp farming risks.
Executive Summary
Choosing the best fish to eat can be complicated. People browsing seafood counters or restaurant menus may wonder whether certain fish are both safe and sustainable. In many cases, the more a person knows, the more questions arise: Is this wild or farmed? Local or imported? Produced in an environmentally responsible way? High in mercury? Tainted with antibiotics and chemicals?
The European Union (EU) may cut 20 per cent of the market stringent testing requirements for Bangladeshi aquaculture products, as Bangladesh has succeeded in meeting most of the EU fish farming standards.
The EU Food and Veterinary Office (FVO) team, which visited the country from 24 March to 1 April, has released a report describing the progress.
“Improvements were seen in the residue monitoring system particularly in the laboratories,” said the FVO’s draft report. “In contrast to the findings in 2010, the analytical methods used for the residue monitoring programme in crustaceans and for the pre-export testing are now validated and fit for the target purpose.”