Review: (Allshouse et al, 2003) Chapter 7- International Trade and Seafood Safety

International Trade and Food Safety: Economic Theory and Case Studies
Chapter 7- International Trade and Seafood Safety

Agricultural Economic Report No. (AER828) 145 pp, November 2003, USDA-ERS

http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/aer828/

Allshouse, Jane, Jean C. Buzby, David Harvey and David Zorn (FDA); Jean C, Buzby (editor)

Objectives & Key Methods

This paper mainly served as an overview of issues in international trade and seafood safety. The topics discussed included: U.S. Seafood Exports and Imports, Seafood Safety, FDA Import Detention Data for Seafood,

Seafood Safety Incidents Affecting International Trade, Public and Private Actions to Ensure Safer Seafood, and finally Implications for Policymakers which summarized the data presented in the paper.

To address these issues this paper used a literature review and some data analysis of FDA Import Detention data. The bulk of this review will serve to document the noteworthy facts gathered from this paper...

Key Background Info

- During 1976-78, jurisdiction over coastal waters by coastal nations expanded to 200 nautical miles offshore

- Technological advances have increased productivity, altered patterns of trade and added pressures on wild fish stocks

- Growth of aquaculture, led to an oversupply of certain species and thus "dumping"

- US ranked 5th in overall fisheries production, 4th in terms of volume of exports, 2nd in volume of imports (FAO, 2000)

- "No evidence that imported food, as a whole, poses higher food safety risks than domestically produced food" (Zepp et al., 1998)

- Federal agency that governs fishery resources is the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) in the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

-"In the United States alone, aquaculture production increased from 570 million pounds in 1990 to 880 million pounds in 2000 (National Marine Fisheries Service, 2001)."

U.S. Seafood Exports and Imports

- Values are not all estimated at the same stage of production

* Export:  "free alongside ship" value, value of product at port of export based on sales price including inland freight, insurance and other charges incurred prior to exportation

* Production: ex-vessel prices, value of catch at dock where vessel is offloading

- Export value/pound from United States is usually significantly lower than import value/pound to the U.S. because mix of species exported is different than mix imported and level of processing varies

- A significant quantity of U.S. produced seafood is exported to countries with lower labor costs for processing and then reimported into the U.S. for consumption (explains how countries can be large importers and exporters of high quality seafood at low price)

- Because seafood is a seasonal commodity seafood producers use access to international markets to stabilize revenues (this is why seafood producers and consumers have interest in maintaining open markets to provide year-round seafood to as many potential customers)

- Cod, flounder, menhaden (mostly used for fish oil and meal for poultry feed), pollock, salmon, crab, shrimp and squid accounted for 76% of total US exports in 2000; exports dominated by salmon products (Pacific salmon not consumed by western states is exported to Japan and large amounts of farmed Atlantic salmon goes to East Coast from Canada and Chile), surimi (processed seafood that uses pollack as major ingredient), lobster, caviar and other roe (combo of products from herring, salmon, pollock, sea urchin and other species) primarily to Japan and Canada (about 55% of 2001 export value)

- "United States imported roughly $6.8 billion more edible seafood than it exported in 2001: the U.S.

imported $9.9 billion (4.1 million pounds) and exported $3.2 billion (2.6 million pounds) (NMFS, 2002)"

- Top 5 imported products to the U.S.: shrimp ($3.6 billion, 883 million lbs), tuna ($829 million), lobster ($728 million), crab ($368 million), fresh and frozen salmon ($335 million)- 60% of all U.S. fisheries imports

- Seafood trade is less restricted than trade for other ag products because of lack of heavy quotas or duties on imports, vast majority of seafood products are tariff free (i.e. frozen shell-on, head-off shrimp, most common form of imported shrimp & fresh or frozen Atlantic salmon as whole fish or fillets)

- Highest tariff rates are for tuna in airtight container in oil (35%) and sturgeon roe/caviar (7.5%) (Koplin, 2002)

- Low tariffs may be due to lack of availability from local fishermen, lack of availability in sufficient quantities, or lessening of tariffs due to General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations

- 2001: Canada, Thailand, China, Mexico, Chile, Vietnam and Ecuador largest suppliers

- Developing countries supply about half of all worldwide seafood exports (Sun and Caswell, 2002), Asia exports 36.5% of total (Cato, 1998)

Seafood Safety

- "Most seafood-associated illness reported by U.S. consumers point to consumption of raw bivalve mollusks

and to unspecified and unknown foodborne illnesses with Norwalk-like viral gastroenteritis symptoms (Ahmed, 1991)."

- "According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), surveillance data for

foodborne disease outbreaks indicates that 6.8% of the 2,751 outbreaks during 1993-97 were attributed to consumption of shellfish and other fish (Olsen et al., 2000)." Does not include unreported cases.

- World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 40 million people become infected each year from trematode parasites by consuming raw or inadequately processed shellfish, freshwater fish, and aquatic plants (WHO, 1995).

- Types of seafood hazards:

* Bacteria: Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Listeria, Salmonella and Staphylocococcus

* Viruses: Norwalk virus associated with raw shellfish consumption

* Toxins: ciguatera found in large tropical reef fish, domoic acid found in shellfish and mollusks, saxitoxin also found in shellfish, and histamine found in mahi and tuna

* Parasites: roundworms in raw or not fully cooked food; freezing can destroy these organisms in fish for raw consumption

* Chemicals: localized problem in freshwater species, but can also occur in ocean fish from spills, dumping of pesticides, industrial chemicals, heavy metals and petroleum products

* Product inputs: allowance of vaccines, feed additives, antibiotics for farm-raised fishery products has caused food safety concerns (FDA, 2001)

- Seafood is more perishable than livestock or poultry, faster decomposition and shorter shelf life

FDA Import Detention Data for Seafood

- The Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) was enacted to protect the health and safety of

Americans and to protect them from mislabeled or adulterated domestic or imported food products.

- 2 types of detention:

* Regular detention: physical analysis or records show violation of FFDCA

* Detentions without physical examination (DWPE): automatic based on past violative history or based on alerts that are perceived to be a threat to human health (represent a large majority of detentions)

- Only a small percentage of all seafood imported into U.S. is physically inspected so detention data does not fully capture all food safety problems

- "sampling strategies by FDA and other agencies are designed to focus enforcement and inspection efforts on areas that have the highest probability of having a problem (Ahmed, 1991)"

- 2 main categories for seafood detentions: (2001, 83.6% adulteration and 14.3% misbranding, 2% insanitary manufacturing, processing or packing)

* Midbranding- included untruthful labeling or lack of labeling

* Adulteration- safety, packaging integrity or sanitation problems (Caswell and Wang, 2001), Salmonella (34%) and "filthy" (27%) accounted for more than half of all adulteration violations

- 63% of countries had products detained for “no process,” meaning that the manufacturer had not filed information on its scheduled process

- Highest misbranding violations: Nutrition Labeling (2001: 200 or 3.1% of all violations), Lack Firm (2001: 140 or 2.2% of all violations) and Usual Name (2001: 136 or 2.1% of all violations)

- Top 3 countries with number of violations in 2001: Vietnam (580 detentions, 1.21 detentions per $1 million), Thailand (407 detentions, .25 per $1 million) and Indonesia. Canada is the number one importer (.03 detentions per $1 million)

- Shrimp is the largest single import item (40% of seafood import value in 2001) with a quarter of all detentions, accounts for 58% of all Salmonella detentions and 48% of all filth violations.

Seafood Safety Incidents Affecting International Trade

- Food safety restriction can act as barriers to trade

- Food safety incidents can impose costly requirements on developing countries beyond their ability to afford compliance (Henson et al., 2000)

Public and Private Actions to Ensure Safer Seafood

- 7 HACCP Steps:

1) conduct hazard analysis

2) identify critical control points (CCP) for physical, biological and chemical hazards

3) establish critical limits for preventative measures associated with each CCP

4) establish ccp monitoring requirements

5) determine and perform corrective actions

6) establish recordkeeping systems

7) conduct verification procedures

- Canada: first to establish HACCP-based inspection program for fishery products, importers may develop quality management system for submission to Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA, 2002)

- EU: 1991 and 1994 adopted regulations roughly based on HACCP (FAO, 2000)

- US: 1995 FDA stipulated that importers of seafood to the U.S. meet same HACCP standards as U.S. seafood processors (Federal Register, Dec. 18, 1995)

- Inspection protocols, regulatory limits for contaminants (Ahmed, 1991) and HACCP systems vary across countries. EU regulations apply to whole production chain whereas U.S. seafood HACCP apply only to processors (FAO, 2000)

- Leading trade association for fish and seafood products is the National Fisheries Institute founded in 1945, mission includes food safety education for the seafood industry including scientific and technical information on key issues like HACCP, irradiation, mandatory recalls, mercury and voluntary seafood inspection services 

- National Shellfish Sanitation Program (NSSP) requires identity tags from harvest to consumer: "The tags must include the identity of the shellfish harvester/dealer and the date and location of harvest. Lot identity of the shellfish must be maintained throughout the production and marketing chain. The identity preservation system has been very helpful to authorities in the control of foodborne illness. But it is not a complete solution to the seafood safety problem. Tags may be lost or switched and the existence of tags does not control pathogens and other hazards."

- Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002, Section 10816 contains two new labeling requirements pertaining to seafood: 

1) Seafood must have country-of-origin labels

2) Labeling has to distinguish between farm-raised and wild harvest seafood products

Implications for Policy makers

1) Salmonella is a potential target for risk reduction efforts

2) Most Salmonella contamination detentions are for shrimp, most seafood Salmonella contamination is due to cross-contamination introduced during the processing stage

3) International seafood markets will continue to expand and become increasingly segmented

* "In the United States, the average import share of fish and shellfish consumption increased from 56.3 percent

in 1990 to 68.3 percent in 2000."

* Increased demand means wealthy countries will want to remove most trade barriers to decrease price (FAO, 2000)

* By 2030 more than 50% of fish supplies will come from aquaculture and wealthy countries will depend more on imports.

Opinion and General Comments

According to Google Scholar this paper has been cited 11 times since 2003. Since this was an overview report, perhaps stated objectives were not necessary, but I arrived at the same three conclusions after reviewing the paper. Given the governmental nature of the data its biases show through. Clearly this paper was pro-trade without considering that local sourcing of seafood could greatly mitigate seafood safety standard issues. One project that was made is that seafood safety may become a source of product differentiation. I don't believe this as people will continue to consume fish that is available, especially given immigrant populations throughout the world. This lack of discretion is also why local sourcing of seafood is not a major focus, most people will eat what is available irregardless of season and safety standards. The paper did point out there there is difficulty in separating the roles of food safety and non-science issues such as consumer preferences in regulatory decision making.

This paper stated: "Difficulties in determining whether an equivalent safety outcome has been achieved when process standards are used" and "Strong differences in consumer risk perceptions and preferences" have caused differences in regulations and standards among countries. According to the authors this could lead to international trade conflicts of disputes that can ultimately affect global patterns of food demand and reduce trade. This is evidence of their pro-trade stance, which is so ingrained in economic, but as I was mentioning earlier the opposite, local sourcing, may do a better job of improving local economies and improving food safety standards. 

Further evidence of this papers bias can be seen in this statement: "The large percentage of shipments that are released after being detained reflects the cautious approach that FDA takes in protecting human health." This statement seems to overlook that they also stated that only a very small percentage of targeted shipments are contained. The fact that samples are chosen based of previous violations shows a weakness in sampling method. 

For the purposes of my research this paper is justification for focusing on aquaculture shrimp: "most contamination problems are from Salmonella in shrimp and prawns, risk reduction efforts theoretically could be focused on that bacterium." (p. 109), shrimp is primarily aquaculture product.

Useful References 

Zepp, G., F. Kuchler, and G. Lucier. “Food Safety and Fresh Fruits and Vegetables: Is there a Difference Between Imported and Domestically Produced Products?” U.S. Dept. Agr., Econ. Res. Serv., VGS-

274, (April 1998):23-28.

Cato, J.C. “Seafood Safety—Economics of Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) Programmes.” FAO Fisheries Technical Paper No. 381, Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization, 1998.

National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), U.S. Deptartment of Commerce. “Imports and Exports of

Fishery Products: Annual Summary, 2001,” Dept. of Commerce, 2002.

Food and Agriculture Organization, United Nations. “The State of World Fisheries and Aqua-culture,

2000.” ISBN 92-5-104492-9, Rome, Italy, 2000. www.fao.org/DOCREP/003/X8002E/X8002E00.htm, accessed June 7, 2002.

Ahmed, F.E., editor, Institute of Medicine. “Seafood Safety.” National Academy Press: Washington DC, 1991. www.nap.edu/books/0309043875/html/index.html, accessed Aug. 9, 2002.

WorldCatch, Inc. “EU Fish Products Now Require Extra Labeling,” The Wave, Oct. 23, 2001.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Fish and Fisheries Products Hazards and Controls Guide.

2001, pp.16-37. www.cfsan.fda.gov/~acrobat/haccp4c.pdf

Blisard, N., B.-H. Lin, J. Cromartie, and N. Ballenger. “America’s Changing Appetite: Food Consumption and Spending to 2020,” Food Review 25,1(Spring 2002):2-9.

Review: (Andre and Cardenete, 2009) Defining efficient policies in a general equilibrium model a multi-objective approach

Defining efficient policies in a general equilibrium model a multi-objective approach

Francisco J. Andre´, M. Alejandro Cardenete (Department of Economcs, Pablo de Olavide University, Carretera de Utrera km. 1, 41008 Sevilla, Spain)
Socio-Economic Planning Sciences: 43 (2006), pp. 192-200


Objectives
This research attempted to quantify trade-offs between 2 specific policy objectives, growth and inflation, when designing fiscal policy. The model constructed a frontier of efficient policies involving real growth and inflation. The model is applied practically by offering policy recommendations that COULD have helped Spain during 1995 inefficiencies.


The methodology is claimed to be unique since it is operational and practical while remaining consistent with economic theory. The combination of Multi-objective Programming (MP) and Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) has never been attempted. It is pioneering in its application of the Paretian concept of efficiency to the field of policy design


Key Methods or Approach
The key methods were Multicriteria Decision Making (MCDM), specifically Multi-objective Programming (MP), combined with a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model. CGE is consistent with standard economic theory and allows measurement of effect(s) of a specific policy with real data concerning prices, production levels, tax revenues, and income distribution. This set-up allows calculation of relevant macroeconomic indicators as a function of policy instruments within a multicriteria decision problem to be solved by a policy maker.


Important Results or Conclusions
They showed that in 1995 Spain displayed some degree of inefficiency with respect to growth and inflation policy objectives. They used this model to provide two policy recommendations sets. One recommendation was general in that it considered efficiency independent of the importance of growth or inflation. The second focused on a specific objective such as increased growth or controlled inflation.


Assumptions
The litany of assumptions that accompany economic models are what is steering me away from incorporating an economic model such as general-equilibrium. Some of the assumptions for this model include:


- The CGE uses Walrasian equilbrium including the public and foreign sectors. (The meaning of this I am not exactly sure, so it is not really something that deters me from using CGE, but I did want to document it.)
- Taxes and public expenditure are taken as exogenous by consumers and firms, but are considered decision variables for the government
- The equilibrium of the economy is given by a price vector for all goods and inputs, a vector of activity levels and value for public income
- Public income must satisfy following conditions:
1) consumers maximize utility
2) firms maximize profits
3) public income equals payment of all economic agents
4) supply equals demand in all markets

This last set of mentioned assumptions are the type of required assumptions that do deter me. I do not believe that 

"the consumer’s behaviour is modelled by assuming that s/he aims to 

maximize welfare, which is derived from consumption goods." I also believe that firms must solely focus on maximizing profits. Lastly, is it really practical to expect supply to equal demand in all markets.

Opinion 
The most useful aspect of this paper were its Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) references:


(Introduction to MCDM techniques, and their applications to economic problems) Ballestero E, Romero C. Multiple criteria decision making and its applications to economic problems. Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers; 1998.

(State-of-the-art review of the field)Figueira J, Greco S, Ehrgott M, editors. Multiple criteria decision analysis state of the art surveys. International Series inOperationsResearch & Management Science, Vol. 78. Berlin: Springer-Verlag; 2005.
(Recent developments and applications of MP)Gabriel SA, Faria JA, Moglen GE. A multiobjective optimization approach to smart growth

in land development. Socio-Economic Planning Sciences 2006;40:212–48.

Hung ML, Yang W, Ma HW, Yang YM. A novel multiobjective programming approach dealing with qualitative and quantitative objectives for environmental management. Ecological Economics 2006;56:584–93.

Lins MPE, Angulo-Meza L, Moreira-Da-Silva AC. A multi-objective approach to determine alternative targets in data envelopment analysis. Journal of the Operational Research Society 2004;55:1090–101.

Gabriel SA, Kumar S, Ordo´n˜ez J, Nasserian A. A multiobjective optimization model for project selection with probabilistic considerations. Socio-Economic Planning Sciences 2006;40:297–313.

Ferna´ndez E, Puerto J. Multiobjective solution of the uncapacitated plant location problem. European Journal of Operational Research 2003;145:509–29.

Arroyo JEC, Armentano VA. Partial enumeration heuristic for multiobjective flowshop scheduling problems. Journal of the Operational Research Society 2004;55:1000–7.

Doerner KF, Gutjahr WJ, Hartl RF, Strauss C, Stummer C. Pareto ant colony optimization with ILP preprocessing in multiobjective project portfolio selection. European Journal of Operational Research 2006; 171:830–41.

According to Google Scholar this paper has been cited three times, but it was only published in 2009. That is actually good considering it has not been a whole year. The paper itself was well laid out and addressed it objectives and the format it stated in the beginning of the paper. It has no direct impact on the field of food distribution environmental or nutritional impacts. However the suggested extensions and referred MCDM methodologies could be used to create a model that addresses the multiple goals within a food value supply chain. With that in mind the Multiobjective Programming (MP) could possibly be combined with Agent-Based Modeling instead of CGE as I am not interested in being consistent with economic theory. 


The conclusion of the paper included the following suggested extensions:
- Alternative multi-criteria methods that do not seek global optimum, but, rather, satisfy "reasonable" aspiration levels using goal programming
- interactive MCDM provides a way to "fine-tune" policies by incorporating preferences of policy makers once initial policy suggestions have been offered

Review: (Hushak et al., 1993) Survey of Wholesale and Retail Buyers in the Six Southern States of the North Central Region

Survey of Wholesale and Retail Buyers in the Six Southern States of the North Central Region 

Hushak, Leroy (Professor Dept of Ag Econ and Rural Sociology), Charles F. Cole (Professor School of Natural Resources), Douglas P. Gleckler (Research Associate School of Natural Resources) Ohio State University, Columbus, OH

Technical Bulletin Series #104 (Funding provided through USDA Grant #89-38500-4319), January 1993

Objectives
This study had four specific objectives:

(1)  Describe the marketing channels for farm-raised and wild-caught seafood in the North Central Region (NCR)

(2)    Describe processing function of wholesale and retail channel members in order to examine vertical integration and accurately describe distribution channels.

(3)    Describe attitudes and preferences of NCR buyers regarding product quality attributes of farm-raised versus wild-caught seafood

(4) Develop list of species with potential to be marketed as farm-raised

This study is meant to look beyond “farm gate” transactions into the traditional seafood channel to bridge gap between producer and consumer studies. Ultimately this study aimed to aid in the development of the seafood aquaculture industry. Business and industry planners could benefit from the uncovering of channel member processing functions in order to find penetration points within distribution channel.

Key Methods or Approach 
Mailed questionnaires were designed to collect demographics and information pertaining to the four specific objectives. The mailing list consisted for 430 survey units limited by presence in Yellow Pages ads for wholesale and retail fish and seafood business in cities with populations greater than or equal to 100,000. The total universe as reported by a mailing list service publication is 565 retailers and 264 wholesalers. One hundred twenty-nine response were expected, 362 of the 430 were deliverable and 103 were usable.

Market channel functional relationships consisted of: (1) specialty retailer, (2) wholesaler, (3) distributor, (4) retail grocer with seafood counter, (5) processor, (6) warehouse, (7) broker, (8) producer and (9) other.

Each market channel participant could perform one or many of the following functions: (1) production, (2) processing, (3) brokering, (4) wholesaling, (5) warehousing, (6) distribution, (7) grocery retail, (8) specialty retail and (9) other. Some participants also imported or traded.  (More specific processing forms for reference: process dressed products to fillets, process dressed products to steaks, process “in round” products to fillets, process “in round” products to steaks, repackage large shipments into smaller subunits, process “in round” to dressed products, dress and debone, cook/steam/fry/boil/etc., thaw frozen products for sale as “previously frozen,” freeze fresh products for sale as frozen, fillet live fish, bread fillets, dress live fish, marinate or season products, process products into nuggets, stuff products and process products into patties)

Results
Objective 1
Respondents from all channel classifications buy inventory from multiple sources, perform multiple functions and sell to multiple customer types. Because of this describing the marketing channel cannot be mapped in a straight forward manner. The general flow is from producer -> wholesaler -> retailer -> consumer. Transactions occur in all directions, but mainly forward or downstream as described. Farm-raised products are bought from fewer sources than wild-caught.

Objective 2
Processing forms range between species and occur at all classification types. More wholesalers have the facilities to process fish “as harvested.” This is also described as “in round” or “dressed.” Grocery retailers tend to do more end user convenient processing such as precooking, marinating/seasoning, breading or forming into nuggets. Stuffing is more often performed by a specialty grocer or wholesaler.

Objective 3
Attributes for cultured products were rated better than wild-caught products.  Current demand for farm-raised products in relation to supply is seen as higher. Because of this the market potential for farm-raised products is good due to current and future excess demand perceived b respondents.

Objective 4

The most frequently sold freshwater species are: (1) walleye, (2) salmon, (3) trout and (4) channel fish. The 5 seafood products respondents would like to sell if farm-raised are: (1) walleye, (2) yellow perch, (3) hybrid striped bass, (4) largebouth bass and (5) bluegill sunfish. The 5 least desired farm-raised products are: (1) common carp, (2) sturgeon, (3) crawfish, (4) tilapia and (5) salmon. A list of 19 species were divided into the following 4 types based on whether merchants would “liketo” sell the fish and actual market presence.

Type A: Has a low market presence and low demand (Carp)

Type B: Species generally satisfy demand as cultured products. (freshwater mussels, sturgeon and tilapia (these may increase if marketing efforts are aimed at product awareness); cultured catfish and salmon (have room for expansion in NCR); frogs, crawfish and freshwater shrimp (also have potential for expansion but less))

Type C: Have the highest potential for industry development based on market presence and buyer demand (walleye, yellow perch, white bass, white perch and buffalo fish)

Type D: Popular or many market participants would like to sell farm-raised product (trout (sold exclusively as farm-raised); hybrid striped bass, largemouth bass, bluegill and smallmouth bass)  

In regards to the overall expansion of the farm-raised seafood product industry, texture, value, price and stability are potential problems. In relation to wild-caught participants preferred the availability, uniformity of size, seasonality of supply, freshness and quality  of farm-raised seafood.

Assumptions 
This study promotes aquaculture over wild, but did not provide evidence that it was better nutritionally or environmentally.

General Comments and Opinion 
This study was cited 3 times according to Google Scholar by similar types of studies. The reference list also consisted of similar studies. However, there is one reference of interest: Redmayne, P. 1990. Follow that fish: Demistifying distribution, part 1. Seafood Leader, July/Aug.

Overall the stated objectives were met, but the data in the tables did not always coincide or were hard to follow. The discussion of the various types addressed by Objective 4 could have been more clearly stated. Also, the term “buyer demand” was used often, which is misleading since all participants were merchants and not end consumers. Many obvious but necessarily stated conclusions about the market channel were given such as grocers are dependent of wholesalers for both farm-raised and wild-caught products. Specialty and grocery retailers sell most of output to final consumers, whereas restaurants are primary customers of wholesalers and retailers secondarily. Some speculation was made about the processing industry for farm-raised and wild-caught products. At times limited data was also cited as an explanation for results. 

Review: (Dung et al., ????) Agent-based modeling and simulation of integrated rice-shrimp farming in Bac Lieu Province, Mekong Delta, Vietnam

Agent-based modeling and simulation of integrated rice-shrimp farming in Bac Lieu Province, Mekong Delta, Vietnam

Le Canh Dung1, Chu Thai Hoanh2, Christophe Le Page3, and Nantana Gajaseni4
1Mekong Delta Development Research Institute, Can Tho University, Vietnam (lcdung@ctu.edu.vn) Currently a PhD student at Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
2International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Regional Office for Southeast Asia, Penang, Malaysia
3Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le development (CIRAD), CUCIRAD Unit, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
4Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand

Main Objective
This study aims to integrate and share stakeholder knowledge about rice-shrimp farming in Bac Lieu Province, Vietnam. The culmination of this knowledge will accelerate collective improvements in the design and management of rice-shrimp production systems (by comparing product mixture?). The research objectives are two-fold: “(1) to understand better the land-use decisions based on interactions among water quality, risk perception, and market price factors; (2) to provide a research process for analyzing decision-making in land-use that can be used for modeling and policy analysis.”

Key Methods
The key method is companion modeling (ComMod). It has two parts. The first is a Role-Playing Game (RPG) between farmers from two villages in Bac Lieu who recreate their famring decisions to reveal diverse water and land-use strategies. The second part is a generic Agent-Based Model (ABM) that used a subset of individual farming decisions to parameterize integrated rice-shrimp farming based on water salinity. The ABM was used using Common-Pool Resource and Multi-Agent System (CORMAS) platform (Le Page et al., 2000). ABM was used to analyze interaction among biophysical and socioeconomic factors that affect land-use decisions. This model accounted for (1) production cost, (2) price of product return and (3) risk of shrimp disease. Currently only one agent is analyzed. The model will become more complex as sluice operator and marketing intermediary agents risk perceptions and economic conditions are added. The model shows spatial setting. More complex model can be created to select production systems at two extremes of canal with different salinity conditions.

The model is split in to three modules: (1) Water (Space- Canal, Village, Farm, Plot), (2) Production (Crop- Rice, Shrimp, Crab, Fish), (3) Social (Household- 3 key operation methods of the farm are: (a) initiate household income status, (b) produce crops, and to (c) harvest products). It is not clear how these modules are embedded in the ABM.

Important Results and Conclusions
This iteration of the model was able to mimic the RPG production change due to water salinity. This will help gain credibility of the model in order to gather more data.

Assumptions
Use of this model assumes that ALL key stakeholders of the common resource (the canal in this instace) are involved in RPG. It also assumes that all stakeholders WANT to share experiences in land-use decisions in order to strengthen the adaptive management capacity of the local community.

Opinion
I am unsure of where this paper was published or how many times it has been cited. Given the terseness of its 5 pages the references list is short and appears to support the model that was built. The first research objective was partially met since land-decision used based on water salinity. It is unclear whether additional scenarios based on sluice operator decisions, risk and economic conditions were actually simulated and assessed. Therefore I am left unaware of scenarios related to risk perception and market price factors. The beginnings of the second research objective was met since the expansion of this model could provide a research process of analyzing decision-making in land-use that can be used for modeling policy analysis.

Impact on Food Distribution Environmental and Nutritional Impacts in Hawaii
This type of modeling could be used to test farm production reaction to various environmental factors. The methodology of the RPG would have to be representative of generalized groupings of operations in Hawaii since it is not practical to interview all producers.

Progressing Direction

After stepping away from this blog to concentrate on classes and other endeavors toward the pursuit of this research, I have come back with an evolved explanation of my research direction, and have realized that I must state my goal before any direction can be chosen, so.... The goal of this doctoral research is to create a life cycle assessment agent-based model that can account for the environmental impact of food consumption patterns in Hawaii. This is the first of many approaches I would like to explore the impact of food availability in order to improve information for food distribution businesses and consumers within a region or community.

The USDA Food Environment Atlas already extensively addresses my larger research goal for many different indicators. This doctoral research will be patterned off of the Food Price-Price Ratio indicators. However, instead of solely examining retail price, my indicators will factor in life cycle assessment to monetize the environmental impact of food choice alternatives.

Given available funding and data availability this doctoral research will focus on seafood in Hawaii. In order of the research to be meaningful I will have to look at specific species. Species of interest are:

1) tilapia or any type of fish that will serve the current purpose of low cost fish sticks, patties or fillets that are used in cafeterias, fast food establishment or frozen meals (comparison of various alternatives of locally available and imported species)
2) shrimp (local vs. import)
3) tuna (local vs. import)
4) salmon (wild vs. farmed)- this analysis does not examine local vs. import, but salmon is widely consumed on these islands

The data is coming from a survey that aims to gather the entire flow of seafood consumption in Hawaii in order to better understand what is imported, which species are consumed the most, and what is the distributional flow from import -> wholesale -> retail -> restaurant or home consumption of fresh, frozen and processed (canned, dried or processed) fish in the state of Hawaii. This survey will be done at the business and institutional levels, asking each operation the weight and price of purchase and sale of 18 different seafood species. A census is being attempted, meaning data for ALL seafood operations. A similar survey was attempted by SMS Research for NHRS (link papers.....) that used a stratified sample by economic unit. This data collection methodology will not truly capture seafood consumption in the island, but it can certainly give a better pictures. These studies will be examined in more depth in later postings.

Speaking of, going forward various articles and media will be reviewed on this blog, some related to this doctoral research that specifically pertains to seafood in Hawaii and some will simply pertain to food distribution and its environmental or nutritional impact. Each review will for the most part address the following points:

What was/were the main objective(s) of the paper?

What were the key methods or approach?

What were the important results and conclusions?

Errors in experimental design, statistical analyses or analytical approaches?

Assumptions made with the data, calculations, models? Reasonable?

References? Amount of citations?

Meet stated objectives?

Main conclusions supported by data? Why or why not?

Number of times cited?

Impact on field of food distribution environmental or nutritional impacts?

Opinion

With that I continue this journey...