But then we have the issue of an audited supply. For GFP, this was solved through certification schemes, but there is currently no certification scheme for stunned shrimps. This is where weâre hoping Precision Aquaculture [âon-farm continuous data monitoringâ], or Precision Welfare, can come into play.
I am not a fan of the term precision welfare. It makes it sound like data is being monitored with the purpose of increasing welfare, whereas I assume the goal is very often increasing profit regardless of whether welfare is made better or worse.
Certification schemes are slow to adapt to changes and often have an unusual incentive structure where their customers are the producers themselves, so trying to be too innovative or progressive can cost them business.
The organisations ensuring the shrimp were electrically stunned, via precision aquaculture or other methods, would in practice be certifiers. I understand certifiers cannot be too innovative, but this applies to both current certifiers, and prospective ones that would rely on precision aquaculture.
We think Precision Welfare could be another way of verifying that the shrimps have been stunned. Installing devices onto shrimp stunners, for example, could automate the tracking of stunned shrimps. Once a shrimp has been stunned, we can verify that it has been stunned and generate a unique credit. Another reason Iâm excited about this is that it incentivises the installation of tracking devices on farms and automates the transfer of that data to a verifiable 3rd party database.
Producers will have an incentive to put shrimp which is not fit for consumption (for example, which died before slaughter time) in the electrical stunners to earn more stunning credits. Ideally, one would only assign credits to shrimp fit for consumption. I assume this can be done by ensuring the shrimps were moving before they are electrically stunned. In addition, no shrimps moving afterwards is a necessary condition of effective stunning, but I guess it is not sufficient.
As this is already the prevalant method of trading shrimps in the industry, we assume that credits will be assigned per kg, rather than per shrimp.
I wonder whether assigning credits per shrimp would be worse than per kg. Assigning credits per shrimp would incentivise farmers to slaughter more shrimp, which can be achieved by slaughtering shrimp at a younger age when they are smaller. It is unclear to me whether this would be good or bad, as I do not know whether the last stages of shrimpsâ lives before slaughter are better or worse than a random moment of their lives before slaughter. On the other hand, I guess the growth rate of shrimps slows down as they age, such that slaughtering younger shrimp would imply an increase in shrimp-years/âshrimp-kg, and therefore a larger population of shrimps. I believe this would be bad because I estimate shrimps have negative lives, even with electrical stunning.
Precision WelfareâI appreciate your feedback here. Iâve had some positive responses from industry folks on this term, but Iâm not locked into the specific language around this just yetâdo you have any thoughts on other ways to frame this idea?
CertifiersâThatâs true. I guess the wider point I wanted to make here is that I think people are locked into a particular view of what certification looks likeâand I think there is a lot of scope for ways to reimagine certification that is more innovative and responsive.
False creditsâYep good point. I think requiring more monitoring on farms to verify that producers arenât falsifying credit generation would be a good thing. This is actually one of the reasons why weâre interested in Precision Aquaculture technology hereâhaving automated sensors that could detect both pre-stunning movement and effective stunning outcomes would create a more robust verification system than relying solely on periodic inspections or self-reporting.
Per shrimp /â per kgâProducers sometimes do âpartial harvestsâ throughout a crop (to recoup losses in case of a future disease outbreak, or to reduce biomass so that the remaining shrimps can grow larger without straining the pondâs carrying capacity, etc.). So my assumption (if we paid on a per shrimp basis) would be that it would incentivise farmers to stock higher at the beginningâthen do a partial harvest as soon as feasible to generate creditsâthen continue to grow the remaining shrimps until the full harvest. Also, I think meeting the industry âwhere theyâre atâ is often usefulâif the industry already trades on a per kg basis, it makes it much easier to integrate credits into this system if we also use per kg.
Thanks for clarifying, Aaron! All of that makes sense to me.
Precision WelfareâI appreciate your feedback here. Iâve had some positive responses from industry folks on this term, but Iâm not locked into the specific language around this just yetâdo you have any thoughts on other ways to frame this idea?
I wonder whether sticking to precision aquaculture would be better due to being more neutral with respect to how good or bad it is in terms of welfare, although I guess it is less appealing to industry for this same reason.
Thanks for the post, Aaron!
I am not a fan of the term precision welfare. It makes it sound like data is being monitored with the purpose of increasing welfare, whereas I assume the goal is very often increasing profit regardless of whether welfare is made better or worse.
The organisations ensuring the shrimp were electrically stunned, via precision aquaculture or other methods, would in practice be certifiers. I understand certifiers cannot be too innovative, but this applies to both current certifiers, and prospective ones that would rely on precision aquaculture.
Producers will have an incentive to put shrimp which is not fit for consumption (for example, which died before slaughter time) in the electrical stunners to earn more stunning credits. Ideally, one would only assign credits to shrimp fit for consumption. I assume this can be done by ensuring the shrimps were moving before they are electrically stunned. In addition, no shrimps moving afterwards is a necessary condition of effective stunning, but I guess it is not sufficient.
I wonder whether assigning credits per shrimp would be worse than per kg. Assigning credits per shrimp would incentivise farmers to slaughter more shrimp, which can be achieved by slaughtering shrimp at a younger age when they are smaller. It is unclear to me whether this would be good or bad, as I do not know whether the last stages of shrimpsâ lives before slaughter are better or worse than a random moment of their lives before slaughter. On the other hand, I guess the growth rate of shrimps slows down as they age, such that slaughtering younger shrimp would imply an increase in shrimp-years/âshrimp-kg, and therefore a larger population of shrimps. I believe this would be bad because I estimate shrimps have negative lives, even with electrical stunning.
Thanks Vasco :)
Precision WelfareâI appreciate your feedback here. Iâve had some positive responses from industry folks on this term, but Iâm not locked into the specific language around this just yetâdo you have any thoughts on other ways to frame this idea?
CertifiersâThatâs true. I guess the wider point I wanted to make here is that I think people are locked into a particular view of what certification looks likeâand I think there is a lot of scope for ways to reimagine certification that is more innovative and responsive.
False creditsâYep good point. I think requiring more monitoring on farms to verify that producers arenât falsifying credit generation would be a good thing. This is actually one of the reasons why weâre interested in Precision Aquaculture technology hereâhaving automated sensors that could detect both pre-stunning movement and effective stunning outcomes would create a more robust verification system than relying solely on periodic inspections or self-reporting.
Per shrimp /â per kgâProducers sometimes do âpartial harvestsâ throughout a crop (to recoup losses in case of a future disease outbreak, or to reduce biomass so that the remaining shrimps can grow larger without straining the pondâs carrying capacity, etc.). So my assumption (if we paid on a per shrimp basis) would be that it would incentivise farmers to stock higher at the beginningâthen do a partial harvest as soon as feasible to generate creditsâthen continue to grow the remaining shrimps until the full harvest.
Also, I think meeting the industry âwhere theyâre atâ is often usefulâif the industry already trades on a per kg basis, it makes it much easier to integrate credits into this system if we also use per kg.
Thanks for clarifying, Aaron! All of that makes sense to me.
I wonder whether sticking to precision aquaculture would be better due to being more neutral with respect to how good or bad it is in terms of welfare, although I guess it is less appealing to industry for this same reason.