ASC Certified Shrimp: Can Extensive Shrimp Farming Benefit? A case study of Indonesia

Marieke Douma and Jeroen van Wijk

No 2012/46, Working Papers from Maastricht School of Management

Abstract: The Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) is a multi-stakeholder network that has generated a new industry standard for sustainable shrimp production. Will this standard marginalize the millions of poor shrimp farmers across the world that operate in extensive pond systems, or could the standard help them with affordable sustainable production approaches and new market opportunities? This study offers an historical snapshot of a ‘value chain partnership’ in development while addressing the question of how the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) standard network can generate institutional changes that advance the inclusion of extensive shrimp farmers in the global value chain of shrimp? The study involves a desk study and in-depth interviews with 16 stakeholders along the Indonesian-European shrimp value chain, the majority of them in Indonesia. The focus is on three aspects: (a) the overlap and friction in the ‘theories of change’ of the ASC-shrimp network stakeholders; (b) the perceived institutional divide between the ASC requirements and the customs in Indonesian extensive shrimp farming; (c) the likelihood that the ASC-shrimp network succeeds in creating a supportive constituency in Indonesia for the changes in shrimp farming which the ASC standard brings along. The most significant finding is that the ASC-shrimp network is not yet consistent in its objectives and strategies. The ASC lead organizations are presently not focused on the inclusion of extensive shrimp farmers in the ASC-certified shrimp value chain. The Indonesian extensive shrimp farmers and shrimp processors and exporters do not care much. They have alternative export markets that are more important than Europe. However, most other stakeholders – the lead firms in the chain, the Indonesian government, and Indonesian NGOs - tend to embrace the ASC shrimp standard because the sustainability changes envisaged by the standard fit their own objectives quite well.

Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2012-06
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://web2.msm.nl/RePEc/msm/wpaper/MSM-WP2012-46.pdf First version, 2012 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:msm:wpaper:2012/46

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Maastricht School of Management Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Maud de By ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).