The Vietnam Institute of Fisheries Economics and Planning have been conducting research to assess the status of awareness, behaviour and best practices relating to improving animal welfare in shrimp value chains in the Mekong River Delta in Vietnam (see earlier blog article). They have now completed the survey work and have commenced analysis of the results and work on the final report. The initial results are presented in the following video.
The team first established an analytical framework for their survey work, taking into account the five freedoms defined by the UK Farm Animal Welfare Council, and the welfare assessment methods for farmed shrimp defined by Pedrazzani et. al (2023). They then considered the value chain for shrimp and identified hotspots where aquatic animal welfare may be most at risk.
Overview of the shrimp value chain
For each key indicator of shrimp welfare they then used a simple three point scoring system (good, basic and low) to measure the awareness of that indicator of stakeholders at the relevant points in the value chain. A similar scoring system was defined to assess stakeholder behaviour as positive, negative or very negative.
Administering the survey with stakeholder groups
The survey found that awareness of shrimp welfare was generally low, although better in some parts of the value chain such as hatcheries. Several examples of good practices were however identified and highlighted. These included:
use of quality assurance for husbandry inputs such as feed additives and pharmaceuticals
use of water treatment technology in hatcheries, transport and grow-out
avoidance of eyestalk ablation
use of specialised shrimp transport tanks and vehicles to deliver live shrimp to market.
Live shrimp transport boxes
Full details of the research findings will be published in due course.