17. Seed Certification

In the previous section I examined in detail how certifiers approach the issue of water. Certification and management of water is the primary empirical case of this thesis, however other cases can provide additional perspective to fill out an understanding of how certifiers perceive and choose to act in the system to be governed. In this section I will present the case of seed more briefly than I did for water, highlighting aspects that provide more depth to the overall empirical case of certification systems.

Seed, the juvenile fish used to stock a farm, are a primary component of the Pangasius value chain and typically have a number of standards devoted to them in the certification systems examined here. Many of the observations presented in the section on water certification remains true in the case of seed certification as well. As in the case of water, there it can be confusing to identify product quality and environmental impact related criteria. Also certifiers have similar approaches to diversity and dynamism of the seed sourcing, and technical knowledge as in water. However there is significant difference in seed where certifiers shift their exclusive focus on farmers to include seed producers, and they use different approaches to deal with this issue.

Seed is a primary input for successful farming, and is often identified as a potential vulnerability in the Pangasius value chain. During the course of my interviews variety of different informants remarked on problems associated with the seed supply for farming. Certifiers have also identified this as an important issue and included requirements relating to seed production and seed sourcing in their standards. SQF includes 4 criteria, Naturland has 5 and GlobalGAP has 9 major criteria directly related to hatcheries and fingerling production and transportation. WWF PAD includes three criteria that potentially could affect fingerling production focused on the sourcing and genetic stock of the broodfish and one of them has been challenged internally and is still under discussion. As in the case of water standards, I could find no documents that clearly articulated the justification for the existence of seed standards. However, it is apparent from the standards themselves that certifiers are attempting to address three significant concerns relating to seed quality (or robustness), animal welfare and potential for genetic pollution of escapees. Table 1 provides a summary of general seed related criteria from the four sets of standards examined.

These four certifiers appear to handle diversity and dynamism in seed the same way as they handle it in water. The standards of all four certifiers tend toward the prescriptive. For example Vietnamese addendum to SQF states “…fingerlings should be between 10 and 20 cm with a weight less than 80g per fish.” (translated from Vietnamese). In the case of seed GlobalGAP doesn’t require the creation of a variety of plans, though it does mention a biosecurity plan, but instead relies on prescriptions and prohibitions in the same manner as the other certifiers. As in the case of water the standards seem to be relatively insensitive to local contextual diversity, and maintain the same rigid approach that would appear to be unable to handle fluctuations or unexpected changes.

In the case of water standards, there is a primary focus on highly technical knowledge and this is the case for seed as well, particularly when the standards address genetics. As can be seen in table 1 three of the certifications have criteria related to the genetic stock of the fingerlings produced. PAD is quite prescriptive in this matter, forbidding use of genetically modified or hybrid stocks, and potentially including prescriptions on selective breeding. As genetic stock of an organism is basically impossible to assess visually it requires other means of verification. This is usually accomplished through the use of heredity documentation that tracks lineage of a given cohort of fish. Genetic testing can also be used, though is typically difficult and expensive. Lineage documentation and genetic testing are both very technical disciplines requiring a certain kind of knowledge that is not typically available in farming systems. As in the case of water, outside knowledge in the form of genetic and certification consultants will need to be introduced to meet the requirements of these standards.

In the case of seed the certifiers examined here shift their focus to include the seed producers within the bounds of the certification system. WWF PAD appears to do this implicitly, but SQF, Naturland, and GlobalGAP all explicitly state that seed must come from certified seed sources. Naturland and GlobalGAP both include guidance for hatcheries to get the same certification as the farms, however SQF does not specific exactly what certification is required, though it is probably reasonable to assume it would be the SQF 1000 standards. Inclusion of hatcheries and fingerling farmers within the certification clarifies the kinds of actors and activities that certifiers include within their system boundaries. If there are other types of actors and activities important to the seed system, they are not addressed within these standards.

In this section I have presented the case of seed standards in order to further illuminate how certifiers approach environmental and quality issues in the Pangasius farming. Most of the standards seem to treat seed in a similar way to water, however in the case of seed certifiers to do appear to acknowledge that other system actors beyond the farmers are also important to the success of Pangasius farming practice. For clarity I have presented a summary of my findings in table 2.

In the next section I will briefly summarize my conclusions from my examination of Pangasius certification systems.