May 07, 2011, the Ministry of Agriculture issued Decision No. 1503/QD-BNN-TCTS on Good Practices for Aquaculture in Vietnam (referred to as VietGAP). The criteria for aquatic VietGAP is based on the following principles:
- Aquaculture must ensure quality and food safety by complying with current standards and regulations of the State and provisions of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and the World Health Organization (WHO).
- Aquaculture must ensure health and living conditions for aquatic animals by creating optimal conditions for health, reducing stress, limiting the risk of disease and maintain good farming environment in all stages of the production cycle, etc.
- Aquaculture activities should be done with detail plans and not affects environment, according to the regulations of the state and international commitments. There must be evaluation of the impact on the environment of the planning, development and implementation of aquaculture.
- Aquaculture should be done in a responsible way to society, respect the local community culture, strictly abide by provisions of the State and the relevant agreement of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) on labor rights, not affect the livelihood of farmers and surrounding community. Aquaculture must actively contribute to rural development, brings benefits, equality and contribute to reducing poverty and enhancing food security in the locality. Therefore socio-economic issues must be considered in all phases of growing process from development and deployment of aquaculture plan.
VietGAP is the food safety inspection program throughout from Breeding facilities to slaughter, after slaughter, storage, including related factors such as the environment, chemicals, plant protection drugs, packaging and even the working conditions and welfare of workers in the farm.
VietGAP Certification is to assess and assert that organization’s products are manufactured or processed in accordance with the standard Vietnamese Practice good agricultural production.
Good agriculture practices
In addition to Good Aquaculture Practices in Vietnam issued follow Decision No. 1503/QD-BNN-TCTS, General Department of Fisheries also issued Decision No. 1617/QD-BNN-TCTS giving guidelines for implementiation of VietGAP for growing P.hypophthalmus), P.monodon) and P. vannamei).
Benefits of applying VietGAP:
- Handling difficulties in managing seed, feed and method of implementing the quality management system;
- Improve manufacturing methods, then increase productivity and products quality, contribute to develop domestic livestock;
- Affirm products quality to customers;
- Certified products to VietGAP is the symbol demonstrating quality and safety of the product and to enhance competitiveness in the domestic as well as international market.