Seafood Export Research Articles

Socioeconomic dynamics of the Ghanaian tuna industry: a value-chain approach to understanding aspects of global fisheries

This study investigated how an industrial tuna fishery functions in terms of procedures, practices, governance and finance in the context of Ghana, West Africa. Tuna is Ghana’s biggest seafood export, contributing significantly to the domestic fisheries sector. A case-study approach was used to analyse relevant social and economic factors at the local scale to better understand how the global seafood industry operates in a low-income country. A value-chain framework was adopted to assess market structures, sales pathways and revenue distribution. We also investigated the role of actors engaged in the industry using secondary data, interviews, questionnaires and participant observations. The results revealed a changing organisational structure in tuna production, moving from bait-boat fishing with smaller companies to large-scale purse-seine fishing backed by consolidated Asian seafood companies. Production was found to depend significantly on local female intermediaries for access to funds through prefinancing arrangements. Considerable illegalities were identified within the value chain, highlighting the need for improved partnership and licensing negotiations, and for low-cost marine control and surveillance tools. As vertical integration increases within the industry, the influence of corporations as keystone actors becomes evident for the future social and ecological sustainability of the industry.

Seafood export as a relationship-oriented supply network

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the role of relationships and networking in the international flow of seafood products through export processes and practices using empirical case examples.Design/methodology/approachThis paper provides an insight into seafood export through ten case studies of seafood exporters from Norway and a freight forwarder working with most of these companies.FindingsThe international seafood business is characterised by coordination, interactions, and exchange such that economic and social interactions among network members transcend national boundaries into international/global markets. The findings reveal how studied seafood exports are in line with the learning-based Uppsala internationalisation model, embedded in international buyer-seller relationship structures and networks, which is also a particularity of this food-producing industry. To secure long-term business in distant markets, small- and medium-sized (SME) seafood exporters have shifted the focus from transactional approaches to relationships and networking as a means of improving export performance. This paper suggests how logistics and marketing have become closely and strategically interconnected, and so marketing strategies depend on logistics strategies and the two cannot be separated in a typical global seafood supply network.Practical implicationsPurposeful collaborative interaction between exporter and importer helps in risk mitigation. Increased interactions in distant markets by SMEs can also be achieved using social media networking.Originality/valueThis paper offers an insight into the global seafood supply network using empirical case examples from Norway, an important seafood producing country.

English

English

An Empirical Assessment of Seafood Export Performance and Competitiveness in Gujarat, India

An Empirical Assessment of Seafood Export Performance and Competitiveness in Gujarat, India

Grouping of Cost Involved in Seafood Export of Tamil Nadu-Exploratory Factor Analysis

Cost plays an important role in every aspects of the product from the processing to till packaging of the product. Seafood manufacturers are adopting the strategy to reduce the cost of the product upto their maximum effort. The efforts are mainly for the reasons of reduce the cost of product and offer the product with low cost. The researcher has identified twelve cost involved in the processing plant of the exporter to reach the goods in the hands of the importer. The survey conducted with the 230 seafood exporters of Tamil Nadu by using the simple random sampling method. The researcher found the four groups among the twelve costs involved in seafood export by applying the exploratory factor analysis. The researcher would like to thank the authorities of Indian Council of Social Science Research for providing fund to complete the research work successfully.

Determination of the seafood export competitiveness: The comparative analysis of top ten countries having lion share from seafood export

Purpose- The main aim of this paper is to examine the countries’ sectoral competitiveness on seafood export. By this study, it is tried to find out whether the countries having great share of seafood export also have got competitiveness in export or not. Methodology- Therefore, top ten countries that have the biggest share in the seafood export worldwide are chosen and the Standard International Trade Classification (SITC) Revision 3 product groups are used to analyse by Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) method. Findings- The findings of the analysis have surprisingly showed that Vietnam, Denmark and Chile which have lower-shares of global seafood export also have specialization and comparative advantage on seafood export while the USA with higher-share has competitiveness disadvantage with no specialization. Conclusion- The countries with high-export numbers have not as competitive as it was expected in the seafood trade.

Interfirm Relationships in Emerging Markets: The Importance of Relationships and Cultural Sensitivity

ABSTRACTWhile interfirm relationship value has attracted considerable attention in a domestic market context, little research has examined international buyer-seller relationships. This is surprising, as interfirm relationships across national borders have become increasingly important due to growing liberalization of world trade. Even less research is found including emerging markets. This study use cases with Norwegian seafood export to Turkey as illustrations of the importance of relationship value and cultural sensitivity when conducting business with an emerging country such as Turkey. The data is based on in-depth interviews of Turkish importers.

Accountability as a Governance Paradox in the Norwegian Salmon Aquaculture Industry

The aquaculture industry in Norway currently represents 60% (US$ 5.4 billion) of Norwegian seafood exports. Of these, farmed Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar) represents over 80% (850,000 tonnes). These production levels are driven by a strong and growing demand for farmed fish, and has a stated political goal of increased growth by a factor of 5 by 2050 in Norway alone. However, growth is potentially more challenging without the public support and trust in the governance regime that regulates the industry. The theoretical framework of this paper rests on accountability theory, whereby the research team highlighted and tested the paradox between the ideal and the actual practices on a group of stakeholders representing the aquaculture industry and municipal, regional and sector management in northern Norway relative to their interactions and need thereof – versus the expectations of the public. The findings of a workshop were used to develop a conceptual model and test our theory on stakeholder driven future scenarios using a combination of systems thinking and fuzzy cognitive mapping. We found that stakeholders and management alike in a workshop setting valued flexibility of legislation and expert opinions highly, whereby regulatory standardization is not prioritized – in line with soft accountability. The industry acknowledged, though, that the public perception and negative media attention of the industry, in turn depended on hard accountability.

The effect of the Korea-US free trade agreement on governance of the aquaculture value chain

We present a value chain analysis of seafood exports from South Korea to major consumer markets in the United States, outlining the global value chain of oyster products from South Korea and its governance structure. A major issue faced by consumers is the lack of ability to determine where and how the seafood products are produced and processed. This can be addressed through standards set by the importing firm or country. In this article, we show that Korea–USA free trade agreement has led to development of high-capacity US-approved farms and processing facilities, and stricter standards have created a more efficient production and processing sector for exporting seafood products from Korea to the United States.

Market‐specific Sunk Export Costs: The Impact of Learning and Spillovers

AbstractFirms may face sunk costs when entering an export market. Previous studies have focused on global or country‐specific sunk export costs. This study analyses the importance of market‐specific sunk export costs (defining ‘market’ as a product–country combination). We also study how market‐specific export costs can be affected by various kinds of learning and spillover effects. We use firm‐level panel data for Norwegian seafood exports distributed on products and countries. The results lend support to the hypothesis of market‐specific sunk costs. We also find evidence of learning and spillover effects, particularly within the same product group.

A Summary of the United States Food and Drug Administrations' Food Safety Program for Imported Seafood; One Country's Approach.

It is well known that the vast majority of seafood is captured or farmed in emerging countries and exported to developed countries. This has resulted in seafood being the number one traded food commodity in the world. Food safety is essential to this trade. Exporting countries should understand the regulatory food safety programs of the countries they ship to in order to comply with their applicable laws and regulations to avoid violations and disruptions in trade. The United States (U.S.) imports more seafood than any individual country in the world but the European Union (E.U.) countries, as a block, import significantly more. Each importing country has its own programs and systems in place to ensure the safety of imported seafood. However, most countries that export seafood have regulatory programs in place that comply with the import requirements of the E.U. The purpose of this paper is to describe the United States Food and Drug Administration’s (USFDA) imported seafood safety program. The primary audience for the information is foreign government regulators, seafood exporters, and U.S. importers. It can also give consumers confidence that f U.S. seafood is safe no matter which country it originates from.

Does Disclosure of Illegal Fishing Information Lead to Reduction of Seafood Sales? Measuring the Power of 'Market Instrument' for Compliance Promotion

EU and the US have conducted sanction policy against those countries whose vessels have committed serious illegal fishing activities (IUU activities), by publicly identifying such countries as “IUU fishing nations”. This study evaluates the sanction policy’s impact size on the seafood export value of sanctioned IUU countries and its trend in terms of several angles, hypothesizing that sanction policy will reduce seafood export value from IUU countries through reputational loss in increasingly environmentally aware global markets. This study have revealed that information disclosure sanction does significantly reduce the raw seafood export value from sanctioned countries to the world by approximately 10-20% on average, being controlled with their export value of other foods (e.g. meat, rice, sugar) and time-variant fixed effects. However, the significant impact seems not to surface when looking at each market (EU15, US, other countries) individually. The impact was weaker and less significant on processed products than on raw seafood. These findings offer a new empirical evidence which supports the effectiveness of non-compliance information disclosure as a “market instrument” which could eliminate or reduce the sales of seafood products from non-compliant sources, under some limitations. It is expected that the findings of this study contribute to better informed decisions of global fisheries and environment managers on how to best promote environmental compliance.

Experiencing the Food Safety Regime: Compliance, Market Access, and Coping Strategies of Indian Fishery Sector

This paper has attempted to capture the impact of food safety standards on seafood exports from India. The research issues contemplated in the study are: (i) quantifying the trade effects on fishery exports from India due to the evolving stringency of international food safety standards, (ii) structural changes of export dynamics in the standards regime, and (iii) analysing the implications of standards-related compliance on participation of actors in the export value chain. A unidirectional gravity model (for the period 1998–2013) has been used, wherein, India's fishery exports to 34 countries has been modelled by taking food safety standard as the key independent variable. The structural changes in export dynamics are captured through the constant market share analysis and export market diversification analysis. To understand the forms of coordination in the seafood export value chain, snowball sampling technique has been adopted to select the key informants of the value chain. The study has revealed that the regulations are trade restrictive, and the standards regime is causing a major restructuring of the existing value chain. It is inevitable that India should elevate the national system for testing, certification and laboratory accreditation so as to be at par with the prevailing international trade regulatory safety parameters.

Antibiotic resistance associated with aquaculture in Vietnam

The fishery sector is an important source of income, employment and food supply in Vietnam. In 2014, Vietnam was ranked the world's fourth largest exporter and the third largest producer of farmed food fish. Vietnam seafood export has attained the value of over US$6.0 billion since 2011 and reached a peak of US$7.9 billion in 2014. However, many problems and diseases confront sustainable development of the fishery sector and overuse of antibiotics is considered a major challenge. Antibiotics are used in aquaculture for both therapeutic and prophylactic reasons. Various antimicrobials used in human medicine are also used for food animals even for non-therapeutic use. The use of antibiotics in health management of aquaculture farming is of great concern due to possible residues in aquatic products and in the development of antibiotic resistance. In 2005 the Vietnamese government first promulgated a list of medicines, chemicals and antibiotics that are banned or limited for use in aquaculture and this is regularly updated and amended to tackle the growing problem of antibiotic resistance.

External Insights to Boost Internal R&D Efforts of the Fish and Seafood Export Processing Industry in Sri Lanka

This research is focused on the fish and seafood export industry of Sri Lanka, considering its importance to the country’s economy. The objectives of the study are to investigate the nature of open innovation practices among fish and seafood exporters in Sri Lanka and to find out the role of open innovation on product and process development, market identification, market expansion, brand image, quality control, labelling and certification, sales promotion and advertising, and the sustainability of the resource base. The empirical study is based on the data obtained from 26 EU approved fish and seafood processing establishments. A structured questionnaire followed by interviews with CEOs, R&D heads and quality controllers were the principal data collection tools. Hansen and Birkinshaw’s capability measure is used to measure the firm’s level on idea generation, conversion and diffusion. Processing firms were divided into three groups; idea-rich/poor, conversion rich/poor and diffusion rich/poor. Hypothesis testing proved the positive relationship between firm performance and open innovation practices of the firms. Results reveal that firms are idea rich, conversion and diffusion moderate. Moreover, the study has identified open innovation partners, the nature of their support and the open innovation process of the fish and seafood export processors.

Vietnam’s seafood boom: Economic growth with impoverishment?

By 2050 most seafood will be sourced through aquaculture, with a range of production intensities being required to sustain livelihoods and to meet future needs from seafood. This makes Vietnam a particularly insightful case, since Vietnam is at the forefront of the trend toward greater aquaculture production. Our aim in this paper is to examine the social-ecological sustainability of small producer livelihoods contributing to Vietnam’s seafood boom. This paper uses original survey data to understand the range of fishery-based livelihoods that have contributed to Vietnam being a leading global exporter of seafood. We investigate the kinds of fishery-based livelihood activities that households are engaged in, consider the type and amount (kilograms) of species caught or farmed annually, and examine household perceptions’ of change in species quantity. We find that Vietnam’s seafood sector is facing real sustainability challenges: Nearly 30 % of small producers—fishers and fish farmers—within our sample rest at or below Vietnam’s rural poverty line. Ecological decline and disease in farmed fish is perceived to be a serious issue for all fishers. In this context, policy and management interventions need to better reflect social and ecological variability, adopt an integrated coastal systems perspective across fisheries and aquaculture, and consider the most impact-effective poverty interventions.

한·중 FTA 대응 수산분야 전략적 수출품종 선정에 관한 연구

The objectives of this study is to analyze the competitiveness of fisheries trade between Korea and China, and to estimate strategic seafood export products for Korea-China FTA in fisheries sector. The results of analyses indicate that Korea has comparative advantages in export items such as spanish mackerel, flatfish, cod, roe in frozen fish(0303), and squid, sea cucumber, oyster in molluscs(0307). In addition, tuna in prepared or preserved fish(1604), sea cucumber in crustacean, molluscs and other aquatic invertebrates(1605) have comparative advantage in exporting to China.

Transformation of Value Chain Governance: The Impact of Food Safety Regime on Fishery Sector of Kerala

Considering the theoretical aspects of Global Value Chain, this study has attempted to empirically validate the concepts by taking up a case study of Kerala in India. While examining the evolution of value chain dynamics, the study has found that different types of coordinations have governed the seafood export chain of Kerala from 1950s onwards. The evolution of Kerala's seafood industry from mid-1950s to late 1960s provides a good example of how a captive form of coordination can evolve towards the inter-firm governance structure. From early-1970s, the value chain governance structure shifted from the captive form to more or less a modular one. The vertical disintegration and division of labour have been observed to be the striking features of the sector from 1970s onwards. Subsequently, a large number of new entrants were attracted to the business until the mid-1990s. In the recent international food safety regulatory regime, the seafood value chain has been completely transformed. Concentration and consolidation are taking place at the processing node of the chain, wherein the number of exporters has come down and professional players are upgrading their positions in the value chain. The pre-processing node of the chain is getting integrated to the processing sector, causing a major transformation of the existing value chain. The study has categorically proved that the international food policies can restructure the entire fish commodity chain of a developing country.

Protected areas for conservation and poverty alleviation: experiences from Madagascar

Protected areas for conservation and poverty alleviation: experiences from Madagascar Charlie J. Gardner*, Martin E. Nicoll, Tsibara Mbohoahy, Kirsten L. L. Oleson, Anitry N. Ratsifandrihamanana, Joelisoa Ratsirarson, Lily-Arison Ren e de Roland, Malika Virah-Sawmy, Bienvenue Zafindrasilivonona and Zoe G. Davies WWF Madagascar and Western Indian Ocean Programme Office, BP738, Antananarivo 101, Madagascar; Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE), School of Anthropology and Conservation, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NR, UK; D epartement de Biologie, Facult e des Sciences, Universit e de Toliara, Toliara 601, BP 185, Toliara, Madagascar; Blue Ventures Conservation, Level 2 Annex, Omnibus Business Centre, 39-41 North Road, N7 9DP London, UK; ESSA-D epartement Eaux et Forets, Universit e d’Antananarivo, BP 175 Antananarivo, Madagascar; and The Peregrine Fund, BP 4113 Antananarivo, Madagascar

Thermal insulation requirements and new cardboard packaging for chilled seafood exports

Three expanded polystyrene (EPS) boxes with different thermal resistance (R-value), a box-in-box type cardboard prototype and commercial EPS boxes were packed with fish using standard industry procedures and subjected to a simulated airfreight temperature regime replicating commercial practice. The Quality Index Method was used to assess the fish quality. The boxes with lower R-values did not have a measurable negative effect on the quality compared to the commercial EPS box. There was also no measurable difference in quality between fish stored in the corners or centre of all the boxes. For another experiment a double fluted cardboard prototype and commercial EPS boxes were filled with ice and subjected to a constant temperature regime to determine their R-value. The second prototype had slightly lower R-values than commercial EPS boxes. However, the double fluted wall structure might limit the foldability and manufacturability and will need to be further investigated.