Public Digital Consultation
9 March - 12 April 2021
Traceability of fish and fishery products is critical for verifying the integrity of a supply chain, while ensuring the quality and safety of its products, their legality, or their origin from fisheries that are sustainably managed.
The benefits of traceability have been increasingly recognized by governments, consumers and various stakeholders throughout the value chain. Many countries have introduced mandatory traceability requirements as an explicit obligation to enforce food safety regulations. Traceability mechanisms are also critical to several market-oriented issues, such as catch documentation schemes to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing among others.
This is why traceability has been an important part of the agendas of the FAO Committee on Fisheries (COFI) and the Sub-Committee on Fish Trade (COFI:FT) since 2008. Most recently, the Committee on Fisheries (COFI), at its 34th Session, reiterated how traceability schemes play an essential role in combating IUU fishing and encouraging information exchange on catch documentation, in line with the Voluntary Guidelines on Catch Documentation Schemes (VGCDS).
This public consultation enourages you to review a Guidance Document that analyses the interrelationship of traceability with different components of the value chain, taking into consideration country-specific traceability mechanisms. The Document supports a standardized understanding of the Critical Tracking Events (CTEs) and Key Data Elements (KDEs) in capture fisheries and aquaculture value chains; it establishes authoritative sources of Key Data Elements (KDEs) and supports verification mechanisms. It contributes to FAO’s work for the implementation of relevant recommendations of the 17th Session of the Sub-Committee on Fish Trade of the Committee on Fisheries (2019).
If you work for an international organization, a government entity, an academic institution, an NGO or a private firm along the fisheries and aquaculture value chains as primary producer, post-harvest actor, processor, distributor, service provider, we encourage you to review the Document. You can do it as individual or as a member of a group.
Please, share your views and provide your feedback using this online platform. If you prefer to communicate your comments by email, please contact: nada.bougouss@fao.org.
Feedback Period: 9 March to 12 April 2021 (midnight CET)
Click here to access the e-consultation.
For more information please contact: nada.bougouss@fao.org