Traceability of aquatic products will be conducted electronically

Aquatic products’ traceability is one of the mandatory requirements to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing (IUU fishing), according to a fishery management authority official.

Mr. Nguyen Quang Hung, Deputy Director of the Directorate of Fisheries (DoF) under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said that the traceability of fishery products is now obligatory according to market demands.

“Not only export markets but also domestic consumers need the transparency of information in traceability. Consumers want to know how and where the product they are using comes from. They want to know about the supplying sources, production, the processing and sales of the product,” Mr. Hung said.

According to Hung, Vietnam has deployed the traceability of seafood for a long time. This is reflected in the 2003 Fisheries Law, which requires fishermen to keep records in fishing logs to serve the traceability of the caught fish.

Until the implementation of the Fisheries Law 2017, we had also undertaken the drastic and synchronous traceability of fisheries at designated fishing ports in 28 coastal provinces across the country, said the DoF official.

“We currently have 57 fishing ports eligible for receiving certifications of fishing products. And we do a pretty good job in demanding fishermen to keep a diary when fishing at sea, as well as their reports on fishing vessels’ operation including their transporting of fishing products purchased from other fishing vessels.

Arriving at the port, they should pass a port control unit to get a confirmation for their seafood's origin. Until the wholesalers and enterprises finish their purchase and process seafood, the Fisheries Department will certify for their seafood products before exporting or selling to the market,” said Mr. Hung.

Implementing traceability electronically

Almost all fishermen said they had currently very familiar with the process of recording their fishing works in the fishing diary so they all did it whenever finishing a batch of the net. They noted down everything from the fishing areas to the quantity of the catches.

However, according to the fishermen, recoding in papers during their fishing at sea, in fact,  is quite inconvenient, especially when the weather was not very well such as strong waves and strong winds. Many of them complained that for many times, their notes were unreadable due to seawater which hit over their fishing boat during the high wave thus making the papers wet and smudging all the words. Since then, the completion of the documents for their exploitation consignment encountered many problems afterward.

Regarding the above issue, Mr. Hung admitted that we are still implementing the work of traceability on paper documents so the accuracy, as well as the self-made process, will be time-consuming and not ensuring enough reliability and confidence.

In particular, when the fishermen face windy weather, it will be difficult for them to make their records. It is also inconvenient for them to store the paper records, Mr. Hung said.

Therefore, Mr. Hung added, the deployment of an electronic fishing diary, as well as traceability of aquatic products on the electronic process, will improve the accuracy and convenience in copying, operating, and managing traceability records. To solve this problem, the DoF is developing electronic traceability software and will pilot it in localities such as Vung Tau, Khanh Hoa, Binh Dinh and Phu Yen.

In the coming time, the DoF will organize training courses for fishermen as well as for the fishing port management system and fisheries management units in 28 provinces. And, after piloting, it is expected that in the period of 2021 - 2023, the application of software for traceability of aquatic products will be implemented nationwide.