Myanmar: Improvement and sustainability of the National Aquatic Animal Health and Disease Control System

Project Background

The fisheries sector in Myanmar is critical for national food security, income generation and export earnings. It is estimated that aquaculture and fisheries directly employ more than 3 million people and benefit 12 to 15 million people along the aquaculture value chains and all consumers. Aquaculture alone accounts for about 9% (2006) of the national GDP.

Diseases are one of the main barriers to sustainable aquaculture. Myanmar learned this in the past when white spot disease outbreak of 2010 caused severe economic losses to shrimp farming. It appeared that this was caused by imported post-larvae from neighbouring countries without prior risk reduction measures. Therefore, in order to prevent and control diseases, aquaculture health management is urgently needed at both national and farm level. As far as fish diseases are concerned, Myanmar seems to be free of devastating diseases so far (e.g. Tilapia Lake Virus), but again, the introduction of exotic disease should be avoided and strict quarantine rules should be applied at all costs.

Diagnostic and water quality management laboratories are an important component of aquatic animal health services to detect disease, support disease surveillance, monitor the health status of animal populations, conduct epidemiological studies, screen brood stock for specific exotic pathogens and drug resistance and conduct research. Early diagnosis can minimise the risk of disease outbreaks. In addition, these activities are part of the food safety requirements of the European Union and other importing countries for fishery products imported from third countries.

There was a lack of qualified laboratories for diagnostic and water quality analysis as well as professionally trained aquatic animal disease experts such as fish/shrimp disease experts and fish/shrimp pathologists in Department of Fisheries. This lack of a qualified laboratories and professionals has resulted in inadequate disease testing and inappropriate and incorrect judgments or advices to authorities and farmers.

To strengthen Myanmar sustainable aquaculture, there was an urgent need to establish or improve laboratories for quality diagnostics and water quality analysis in areas with a large number of fish/shrimp farms or hatcheries.

The Department of Fisheries (DoF) was the key service provider. However, the DoF was dependent on annual allocation from the national budget. The latter have so far not been sufficient to maintain infrastructure and quality standards and additional funds were needed.

Objectives

The EU/GIZ-funded project on “Improvement and sustainability of the National Aquatic Animal Health and Disease Control System (AAH) was a component of the Myanmar Sustainable Aquaculture Programme (MYSAP). The overall objective of MYSAP was:

• to contribute to poverty reduction and improved food security and nutrition in selected areas of Myanmar,

with the specific objective (outcome):

• to contribute to sustainably intensified aquaculture (EU), respectively
• to strengthen the sustainably managed aquaculture sector (BMZ) .

The project was to develop a master plan concerning a sustainable service provision, based on different scenarios involving e.g. the private sector and/or universities or other Government institutions.

Activities and/or Results

Result 1 (EU): A conducive institutional and policy context for the inclusive and sustainable development of aquaculture (EU). Output A (BMZ): The institutional frameworks for the promotion of aquaculture are strengthened.

Key Activities:

• Contribution of subject matter related content into drafting/updating of the National Aquaculture Development Plan (NADP) and related policies; 
• Inputs into a national multi-stakeholder aquaculture sector working group to govern the development, implementation and monitoring of the NADP and capacity building for stakeholder coordination; 
• Participation in the review of the regulatory framework for updating legislation and policies on aquaculture, including Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) regulations; 
• Development of a master plan for sustainable SPS/aquatic animal health service delivery, incl. privatisation or joint ventures.

Result 2 (EU): Higher quality service provision in the aquaculture value chain, including fish health and hygiene, curricula development, vocational training and organic certification. Output B (BMZ): The capacities for needs-oriented training in aquaculture are strengthened.

Key Activities:

• Conduct a sector-specific comprehensive analysis and needs assessment, identification of bottlenecks and constraints in respect to aquatic animal health services;
• Evaluation of caseloads of the DoF laboratories;
• Identification of operational constraints and potential solutions including lab equipment and technologies, training needs, lab renovations, maintenance etc.;
• Development of cost estimates for equipment, renovations, capacity development/training, and development of business plans;
• Inputs into activities on improved post-harvest processing, reducing post-harvest losses and maintaining the nutritional value in processing;
• Support the DoF food safety system and as competent authority in conjunction with the granted authorisation for the export of aqua-culture products into the EU;
• SPS/health and disease related inputs into MYSAP/DoF supporting the application of Good Aquaculture Practices activities.
• Inputs into academic curriculum development (M.Sc., B.Sc.) in aquaculture;
• Elaboration of a sector master plan to secure sustainability of services, incl. privatisation/outsourcing of services.

Result 3 (EU): Predictable, cost-effective availability of high quality in-puts accessible to small-scale aquaculture farmers. Output C (BMZ): The competitiveness of SMEs (Small and medium-sized enterprises) in coastal aquaculture value chains is improved considering ecology, cli-mate resilience and social equality.

Key activities:

• Provide technical advice to selected hatcheries advice to improve hatchery operations in respect to SPS standards, disease control and biosecurity
• Support the establishment of model bio-secure hatcheries

Result 4 (EU): More efficient, resilient and sustainable aquaculture value chains

Key activities regarded a higher quality service provision in the aqua-culture value chain, including:

• Advise the DoF and private sector (Myanmar Fisheries Federation (MFF)) on SPS issues in order to improve animal and public health (disease control, bio-security, anti-microbial resistance, water quality analyses), as well as food safety (e.g. risk management, hygiene, residue monitoring, traceability, etc.) of products for domestic consumption and export.
• Strengthen institutional and technical capacities including the ASEAN Good Aquaculture Practices (ASEAN GAqP), Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), biosecurity and traceability.
• Provision of inputs to trainings and vocational training courses (TVET) by DoF or service provider.

Result 5 (EU): Enhanced nutritional impact of aquaculture

Key activity: 

• Provision of inputs to SPS, disease and hygiene related aspects of post-harvest processing, reduction of post-harvest losses (in particular during transportation) and the loss of nutritional value at the processing stage (primarily fish/shrimp paste production and drying), and to foster product innovation to enhance the nutritional and value-added contribution of aquaculture.