SEAT-KU joins Eastern Thai Shrimp Festival

During 27 to 29 January 2012, the SEAT-KU team (Key, Jigsz, Mink and Doug) traveled to Chanthaburi province to participate in the Eastern Thai Shrimp Festival organised by the Eastern Thailand Shrimp Association and the Chanthaburi Shrimp Farmers' Club. We set up a booth to display the shrimp value chain posters (in Thai) and in the process also conducted one phase of the action research on the assessment of poster impact on various stakeholders. Those who stopped by the SEAT booth were requested to read the posters and answer the following questions:
1. Does the poster provide useful or interesting information?
2. Is the poster easy to understand?
3. Is it interesting to read/attractive?

Respondents were also asked regarding their occupation in relation to aquaculture, such as farmer, hatchery operator/technician, feed seller, input/service provider, trader, processor, student, researcher, among others. In addition, they were also requested to indicate the most interesting parts of the poster.

The next phase will involve contacting (face to face or by phone) those who signified that they wanted to participate in poster impact assessment. This will be done in about 2 months' time, focusing mainly on the impact of poster on their awareness of other value chain actors and whether there were any changes in the way they operate their business or interaction with other value chain actors.

During the festival, we had a chance to move around the different exhibitions by various companies esp input, service and technical providers, and to collect information on products and services available to the shrimp farmers in the eastern region. During the seminar itself, various speakers shared experiences and information related to better farm and business management practices, trends and markets, and the impact of the new ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) on Thai shrimp industry.

More photos - click below:

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Project Review & PSG Meetings

The 30-Month project review meeting for SEAT was held during 9-11 January 2012 in Cantho City, Vietnam. The meeting was hosted by the College of Aquaculture of Fisheries, Cantho University, one of the partners of SEAT project. The meeting was attended by the work package coordinators and their researchers, principal investigators from the Asian partner institutions and their research team, two external evaluators and the EU desk officer, Dirk Pottier.

Aside from the meetings, project researchers also joined the field trips to a striped catfish farm, a processing plant and feed mill.

The Project Steering Group with the research teams from each partner institution then had a meeting from 12-13 January 2012 in the same venue, to discuss issues related to progress of work as well as planning for upcoming work to be delivered.

Status of field work

During the latter part of Dec 2011, SEAT Thai team continued with the in-depth surveys among farmers for WPs 6&7 as priority for the chemical use surveys, as well as WP5 livelihood surveys if the same respondents were selected. The team continued the surveys among shrimp farmers in Chanthaburi, Chachoengsao and Surat Thani, and tilapia farmers in Chachoengsao until the end of 2011.

In January 2012, survey work for WPs 6&7 has resumed in Nakhon Pathom and Chachoengsao among tilapia farmers. These areas were affected by the flooding in Thailand last year so the survey schedule was moved to January. The livelihood survey will be conducted if the farms have also been selected for WP5.

Remaining field work which needs to be done include the following:

• WP3 – Life Cycle Assessment of hatcheries, farms, processing plants, feedmills
• WP4 – Water, sediment and feed sample collection from farms
• WP5 – Livelihood survey of farms
• WP6 – FZT and probiotics (in tilapia)
• WP8 – Stakeholder workshops

The deliverable protocol for action research (WP9) is currently being discussed and commented. Mr Douglas Waley, WP9 Manager based at KU is coordinating this work among local partners.