Certified Organic Aquaculture - the "Blue Revolution" made sustainable
New: Aquaculture in the EU Organic Regulation
Naturland Responds to the new EU Organic Regulation
After lengthy discussions, the EU Commission has approved the detailed Implementing Rules of organic aquaculture in the new EU organic regulation, on June 29th. Thus, a legal regulation of organic fish and seafood exists throughout Europe for the first time. The organic association Naturland had already developed a standard for organic aquaculture twelve years ago and played an important role in the process in Brussels. „Naturland welcomes these measures of the EU to encourage organic fish production. However, the new standard is only the lowest common denominator, important points were defined too weakly,“ emphasized Hans Hohenester, organic farmer and chair of the board of directors of Naturland.
Read more about the topic in our press release
New Study: “Organic Aquaculture 2009 – Production and Markets”
“Organic Aquaculture 2009 – Production and Markets” looks back at the development of organic aquaculture production and identifies and describes important issues with regard to standards and laws. It also offers a statistical database on worldwide production and markets, ongoing research and development, and on the perspectives for developing countries, which are major players in conventional and organic aquaculture. In addition, it gives a comprehensive and easy overview of the status quo of organic aquaculture, upcoming developments and trends, challenges and perspectives, chances and constraints. Thus, the book will serve as a tool for decision-makers in the aquaculture industry, as well as in related sector bodies, private certification and labelling organizations, governmental organizations, development agencies and international organizations.
The data was collected through desk top studies, standardized questionnaires sent out to certifications bodies and organic aquaculture producers, questionnaire-based interviews with producers, processors and traders and, additionally, in-depth-interviews with experts.
Aquaculture 2009 - Production and Markets" – is an cooperation of Organic Services GmbH and Naturland e.V.
To order the study, please click here: 
www.organic-services.com
At the end of the 20th century, aquaculture - the husbandry of aquatic animals and plants - became the food sector with highest annual growth rates. A third of all fish and seafood consumed worldwide origins from ponds, net cages, mussel lines etc..
Problems of growth
But this rapid growth also entailed negative consequences: massive use of chemicals and antibiotics, destruction of tropical mangrove forests for the purpose of constructing shrimp ponds, and the over-fertilisation of natural water bodies through the effluents of fish farms are just a few of them.
From Spain to Vietnam...
In the mid-Nineties, Naturland started to develop standards for Organic Aquaculture. Today, aquafarms in more than twenty countries are producing according to these standards, e.g. organic trout in Germany, France and Spain, organic salmon in Ireland, organic shrimp in Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia, organic tilapia in Israel, Ecuador, and Honduras, organic Pangasius (Basa) in Vietnam...
Principles of Organic Aquaculture:
- Careful selection of sites for aquaculture farms
- Protection of adjacent ecosystems
- Active avoidance of conflicts with other users of the aquatic resources (e.g. fishermen)
- Prohibiton of chemicals (e.g. as anti-fouling agents in net pens)
- Natural remedies and treatments in the case of disease
- Feedstuff from organic agriculture
- Fishmeal and -oil in feed derived from by-products of fish processed for human consumption (no dedicated "feed fishery")
- Prohibition of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), neither in feedstuff, nor in the stock itself
- Processing according to organic standards
