© FAI
Witnessing an encouraging rise in awareness of shrimp welfare in an industry producing six million tonnes of farmed shrimp annually, FAI is unwavering in its pursuit of enhancing shrimp wellbeing, while also knowing better welfare supports economic success.
Welfare is no longer just an ethical consideration but a central pillar of modern production systems. Healthy shrimp grow faster, survive better and require less costly interventions, driving cost-effective productivity. To continue driving this change, the Shrimp Hub enables companies to embrace a route to formal endorsement by expanding the approach from individual self-enrolment to training teams of company staff.
“More and more major aquaculture certification schemes are now including animal welfare standards, so the Shrimp Hub has an important role in helping shrimp-producing companies prepare for certification and recognition of their commitment to shrimp welfare,” said Dr Sara Barrento, FAI e-learning and aquaculture program manager, in a press release.
“To facilitate this, FAI offers two welfare ‘badges’ through the Hub, each marking a new level of achievement and indicating verifiable progress in welfare,” continued Dr Barrento.
“The ‘Shrimp Welfare-trained Badge’ is given on completion of our newly created Shrimp Welfare Trained: Foundation Course for shrimp producer companies, processors and retailers. A practical introduction to several aspects of shrimp welfare, it helps companies build essential knowledge and skills to begin measuring and improving their performance.
“The second level ‘Welfare-assessed badge’ is available to companies with the ‘Welfare-trained Badge’ which also run weekly welfare assessments on at least 10 percent of ponds and collect reliable data for improved decision-making and transparency.”
FAI is also marking the Hub’s launch by introducing its popular Shrimp Welfare Indicators course in Indonesian, joining a portfolio of seven other languages.
“Southeast Asia is a global leader in shrimp production so it’s vital our courses and welfare assessment tools are accessible to producers across the region,” explained Dr Barrento. “The Indonesian course sits alongside those in Thai, Vietnamese and Chinese, while also offered in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic.”
The Foundation and Indicators Courses are self-paced and cover the major welfare indicators across nutrition, environment, health and behaviour, how they can be assessed and why they matter.
Available through FAI’s global learning platform, FAI Academy, the Hub brings together FAI’s training courses, tools and expert knowledge in a mobile-friendly, multi-lingual format dedicated solely to shrimp. It also provides a vehicle for other specialist and technology suppliers, ensuring welfare is front and centre of the industry’s future development.
