Sustainable trade in ethical aquaculture

Objective

Trade in aquatic products is the largest global food sector, by value, and Asia represents the main external source of aquatic products into the EU. Current EU policy supporting international trade between Asia and Europe concentrates on issues of food safety as measures of quality, whilst market-forces drive development of standards and labels that identify social and environmental parameters. This project proposes to establish an evidence-based framework to support current stakeholder dialogues organised by a third party certifier. This will contribute to harmonising standards, helping consumers to make fully informed choices with regards to the sustainability and safety of their seafood. The ‘Ethical Aquatic Food Index’, a qualitative holistic measure of overall sustainability to support consumers’ purchasing decisions, will be based on detailed research centred around a Life Cycle Assessment of current processes involved in ensuring aquatic products reach consumers, aligned with analyses from the sustainable livelihoods approach and systems thinking. SMEs based in the EU will participate in this project, particularly the action research phase, enhancing their relative competitiveness. By strengthening the knowledge base surrounding EU-Asia seafood trade the project will provide the evidence required to support further expansion whilst ensuring a fair deal for producers who are meeting appropriate social and environmental goals and offering a safe and sustainable product for consumers. The sectors covered represent the main aquaculture products reaching EU markets; tilapia, catfish, shrimps and prawns. Known case study stakeholders include SMEs in Bangladesh, China, Thailand and Vietnam where sustainability is essential in the face of rapid growth. The research will secondarily improve understanding of opportunities for European exports to supply the expanding middleclass in Asia. Outputs will be promoted through workshops, websites, journal and press articles.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.

• agricultural sciences agriculture, forestry, and fisheries fisheries
• engineering and technology other engineering and technologies food technology food safety
• social sciences economics and business economics sustainable economy
• social sciences economics and business business and management commerce

Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

• Asia
• LCA
• and
• aquaculture
• ethical
• production
• trading

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

• FP7-KBBE - Specific Programme "Cooperation": Food, Agriculture and Biotechnology

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

• KBBE-2007-2-5-04 - Sustainability of the food chain

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

FP7-KBBE-2007-2A
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

CP-SICA - Collaborative project for specific cooperation actions dedicated to international cooperation partner countries (SICA)

Coordinator

Participants (14)