13. An Introduction to Vietnamese Pangasius Certification Systems (Pt. 1)

This chapter will present some detail about four of the environmental and social certification systems currently attempting to establish themselves in the Vietnamese Pangasius industry. My analysis unfortunately is necessarily high level and simplistic as it was not the primary focus of my research. However, it is valuable activity to give some form to these proposed governing systems in order to guide the more significant investigation of this thesis, namely the Pangasius farmers themselves. In order to accomplish this I will begin by providing some background information on the four certification schemes, their action in Vietnam, their stage of development and other basic information. The remainder of the chapter will be divided into four sections using the methodological framework presented earlier to illuminate the sensitivity, inclusiveness, flexibility, caution and perspective of the certifiers relative to four different system components of water, seed, ownership and credit. The primary sources of this data will be documentary analysis of the certifiers draft and published standards, guidance documents, and some limited field observations collected during my time in Vietnam. I will finish the chapter with a brief summary of the fundamental observable trends and characteristics of these governing systems, and how their approach to Pangasius farming necessarily targets farmers as responsible for system changes, while this unfortunately narrowly drawn system boundary excludes many other influential system elements that can both enable and constrain the changes that certifiers are trying to promote.

During my time in Vietnam I encountered at least eight different internationally initiated standards systems that were operating or attempting to “break” into the Vietnamese Pangasius industry. These are listed in Table 1 along with a brief description and URL. In addition to this many Vietnamese processing companies are in the process of developing producer “unions” or “clubs”, a type of long term contractual arrangement that strengthens ties between the two parties and also demands management and quality standards. For the case of this thesis I could not reasonably include and evaluate all of these different kinds of standards systems, and so I have chosen to focus on international standards that include elements focused on environmental and or social issues and to which I had access to reasonably good documentary evidence, in order to draw a generalized picture of typical certification systems. The four certification systems I have chosen to explore are the Naturland Standards for Organic Aquaculture (Naturland), Safe Quality Food 1000 Code for Primary Producers (SQF1000), Global Partnership for Good Agriculture Practice (GlobalGAP), and the World Wildlife Fund Pangasius Aquaculture Dialogue (PAD). In the remainder of this section I will present a brief background on each of these four certification schemes which are derived from a more general global standard, and specifically how they are developed or developing in the Vietnamese Pangasius context.

Naturland is a certifying body accredited under the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements, the overarching governing body for organic agriculture, and has been involved in certifying organic aquaculture since the mid-nineties. The organic movement has a very well articulated philosophy that is based on core ethical principles of health, ecology, fairness and care. IFOAM also has a base set of standards that they call the IFOAM Benchmark for Standards which lays out the basic components of an organic standard. Accredited certification bodies like Naturland are directed to use the principles, the benchmarks and the ISEAL Codes of Good Practice for Social and Environmental Standards if they wish to develop new organic standards (IFOAM 2009). It is hard to trace the inception of the organic movement; however since its institutionalization in IFOAM in the early seventies it has grown dramatically and today is probably the most easily recognizable certification label amongst western consumers. Naturland has been a very active body within this framework, leading the way in organic aquaculture certification and is currently involved in certification for social issues and even wild fisheries (Naturland 2009). Naturland first began the process to certify organic Pangasius farms in Vietnam in 2003. Originally four farms were set to be accredited, three of which received the accreditation, two of which are still accredited today. The small production from these two farms is bought and marketed on an exclusive contract by a German seafood company. Several farmers I spoke with had attended workshops on what were apparently Naturland standards; however, they had not obtained that certification either because they were ineligible due to location or not bothered due to the required high level of effort. Organic certification is an interesting case in Pangasius certification, because despite its small coverage, it is the only certification scheme that I was able to see actually implemented and operating at the farm level

The Safe Quality Food (SQF) standard is sponsored by the Food Marketing Institute, an association of food retailing and wholesaling companies based out of the United States. This certification scheme is designed for a variety of food production systems and is focused on issues of food safety and quality management. There are two different codes, the SQF1000 focused on certifying primary producers and SQF2000 for processors and other intermediaries. There are also sector specific guidelines developed under each of these codes. The standard was first established in 1994 and, according to SQF promotional materials, has a growing membership of interested retailers and wholesalers (SQFI 2009). In response to requests from member organizations SQF has recently developed two voluntary add-ons for responsible social practice and responsible environmental practice, however, as of 2007 no one had yet been certified for these voluntary components. Creation and revision of standards is the job of Technical Advisory Committees focused specific key specialties and comprised of technical experts from the global food industry. Several years ago the Vietnamese Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) developed an agreement with SQF and one its certifying bodies Société Générale de Surveillance (SGS) to implement SQF 1000 and 2000 as voluntary standard for the Pangasius industry. DARD also created some additional criteria of a more environmental nature and began initiated an extension project to train farmers and interested business. As of 2007 SGS had issued 76 SFQ2000 and 4 SQF1000 certificates in Vietnam (Corsin et al 2007). During my time in Vietnam this was the most frequently mentioned certification system when I spoke to Pangasius farmers, many of them had taken the training but none that I visited had been audited or certified. I visited three processing facilities and one hatchery that had attained SQF certification. This certification system is interesting because it is an international standard that has been modified and which the Vietnamese government has obviously spent a great deal of money and effort to disseminate in the Pangasius industry, though certification among farmers appears to be quite limited at this time.

…continued in Part 2 (GlobalGAP, WWF PAD and summary)