Dr. Pear Mohammad :
Bangladesh is a South Asian country which has 716 kilometers coastal belt of the Bay of Bengal in the south. In the bottom level of this territory, natural production of shrimps is 7000-8000 metric tons per annum. Rather than Bagda, shrimp is cultured in Satkhira, Bagerhat, Khulna and Cox’s Bazar districts. Shrimp plays an important role in Bangladesh economy. Shrimp industry is the second largest export industry in Bangladesh, supporting the livelihood of over 6,00,000 people. It provides 2.5 percent of the world supply.
Shrimp is exported in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, United States of America, Japan, France, Hong Kong, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and other developed countries of the world. Shrimp was used to culture previously for local consumption from which a small part were rarely exported. This export business got new dimension in course of time and quality shrimp production became an important issue.
In July 1997, the European Commission (EC) imposed a ban on export of fishery products from Bangladesh due to inadequate infrastructure, improper sanitation, insufficient hygiene, and poor inspection and testing facilities. In this context, to meet international standard and market requirements, Bangladesh has made much improvement in the way the sector operates, through establishment of laboratories, human resource capacity building, field level training programs and traceability implementation, etc. Those initiatives offer real time updates to the rest of the world to build the image of Bangladesh.
The established laboratories aimed to get accreditation, installation of state-of-the art equipments for residue testing, method validation, successful audit, credible test results to verify compliance of fish and fishery products producing in the country. Bangladesh is trying to establish quality systems based on the requirements of ISO 17025 in laboratories towards the accreditation. Laboratories have been established at Khulna, Dhaka and Chittagong which are working to ensure quality shrimp for the world consumers.
Bangladesh is in the process of implementing Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fishing (IUU) regulation. Better capacity for antibiotic residue testing is now on practice. Training programs organized on sanitation, standard operation procedures, traceability, labor law and hygiene in the government and farm level, in the depots, and ice and processing factories. This sort of trainings have made Bangladesh shrimp more acceptable to the world community. Massive programs were conducted throughout the shrimp producing regions of the country to create a greater awareness and knowledge on their personal hygiene among the stakeholders.
The traceability was included as one of the mandatory requirements for compliance and electronic traceability was considered as one of the best options. Food borne disease control was also taken into consideration. A new prevention focused tool and a clear regulatory framework have been established for this purpose.
Coastal land is naturally saline and not suitable for crop production. So, most lands remain unused. But this land is suitable for shrimp production. Shrimp culture, therefore, has given a logical framework of coastal land utilization. Better legal framework through new legislation has been started. In some cases the land owners have vast areas to culture shrimp and in other cases, the land owners have united their lands forming cooperatives to produce shrimp. In these cases, land laws are applied to make the management systematic. Shrimp culture has thereby increased the income and social standard of the barren land owners in the coastal area.
The coastal belt is always disaster prone. Shrimp culture is not so older practice but disaster in the coastal area is happening from the time immemorial. This will mitigate the misunderstanding that shrimp culture might cause environmental degradation. The world is facing the coastal disaster from time to time. Bangladesh is not its exception.
Social compliance and implementation of labor law are integral part of a sustainable seafood business in the international market. Any sort of labor abuse or harassment or injustice is taken into instant consideration. The shrimp processors were assisted by the government agencies in implementing the requirements of social compliance through elaborate training and awareness programs. Follow up trainings were also arranged for shrimp processing factories. In this way almost all factory officials from different processing factories were trained to implement the social compliance requirements in their respective factories. Six shrimp processing industries from Khulna region were awarded Certificates of Appreciation for implementation of labor law by United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) on 24 March, 2012.
Bangladesh was very successful in the recently completed audit by Food and Veterinary Office of EU. It has removed the barriers of export. Bangladesh has been running with many programs to promote fishery product exports to global market particularly in EU. In this endeavor, the government has set up the comprehensive food safety systems across the shrimp value chain with the overall aim to boost trade of fish and fishery products as a trigger for growth and sustainable development.
Shrimp is our valuable export item and ways and means of a large group of coastal people. Quality shrimp is thus an important tool for the national development. We hope that proper steps will be continued for the sake of quality shrimp at all stages of shrimp supply chain. As a whole the socio-economic conditions of target groups, as well as, the whole Bangladesh is our plot. Our efforts are successful to maintain quality of shrimp in the world food market. Quality shrimp from pond to dish should be our priority in every event.
-PID Feature
