Many fishermen rely on inefficient paper-based systems to record their catches, meaning the data are often inaccurate or purposefully corrupted, said a panel on seafood traceability at the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Sustainable Food Institute in Monterey, Calif.
“The ideal standard is to trace [seafood] all the way from the boat to the plate. We’re nowhere close to that,” said Tejas Bhatt, director of the Global Food Traceability Center at the Institute of Food Technologists.
According to a recent report by Oceana, one in five seafood samples collected worldwide was found to be mislabeled.
The panelists, who all work on tech solutions for seafood traceability, argued that going digital is key to developing better information systems around seafood, not only for consumers, but for governments and NGOs. Yet, for now, fishermen see the cost of digitizing as too high, said Timothy Moore, the Senior Partnerships Advisor for the USAID Oceans and Fisheries Partnership.
“If you’re at sea, one of the issues is connectivity. Satellite [internet] is expensive,” he explained. “A large vessel can afford it, but smaller boats can’t.” Some companies see a business opportunity in providing satellite connections free of charge to fishermen. As prices come down, Moore expects the technology to become more widespread.
Dr. Alistair Douglas, who heads Asia operations for the fishing and aquaculture consultancy, SmartAqua, said on the panel that any technical solutions would have to work for poor village fishermen. “We can’t turn to a man at a fishing village and say he has to pay for a smart phone,” he said. His own organization’s software can operate on a flip phone, as long as it has a camera. A fisherman takes a picture of himself, his boat and his catch. In return, he receives a text with a tracking barcode, which he then texts to his distributor, who in turn passes it on to his customers.
That said, Douglas believes that ultimately the best way to monitor seafood is DNA testing. “If you’re talking about beef, you’re just talking about one species. In [SmartAqua’s] database, there’s 12,000 species,” he said, adding that even industry professionals often can’t tell fish apart.