The following is an explanation of how this Code was developed by the FEAP by Ms. Vibeke Christensen who chaired the FEAP Working Group on this topic.

Why should our European aquaculture industry make a Code of Conduct?

There is no simple answer to this question.

The following tries to explain why, how and by whom this initiative was started and inform you about this new form of proactive action from the production sector.

In general, the consumer’s interest in how farmed products are actually produced is growing. More and more people care about what they buy. They care about where it is produced and under what circumstances and, if it is food, they also care about animal welfare; environmental impact of the process also plays a very important role.

It is, of course, important for the producers to realise and understand this interest, so they can ensure that their production fulfils the consumer's expectations. This is not the simplest task, as each person has a different background, education and experience on which his point of view and opinion is based.

Political statements and/or the opinion put forward by different organisations, often through the media’s heavy interest in animal welfare and environmental issues, can change public opinion in a matter of days.

For the producer, it is no longer good enough to follow "normal procedures" today, these can be the "wrong procedures" tomorrow.

In the past the "popular procedure" was that of a "quiet life", reacting to problems and attacks when they occurred, but it is more and more understood that it is absolutely necessary to be pro active, and foresee what to expect of tomorrow. It is evident that a continuous development of all aquaculture operations should therefore be happening.

Who actually sets the agenda of tomorrow's public opinion?

It seems that it is very important for politicians and different interest groups, as evidenced by a lot of different papers that are produced, that in one way or another these should suggest or explain how aquaculture operations should be carried out, based on what is called "public opinion".

As a logical response, this reinforced the decision of the FEAP that the aquaculture sector should have an opinion on what good conduct is and tell those who are interested what this opinion is.

Why a Code of Conduct?

A Code of conduct is defined as being

"a voluntary and non-binding document, also called soft law, drawn up in response to self-regulated sector development"

After selecting professional people from within the FEAP for the Working Group, each having a different background and nationality, the first task was to state the primary goal of the work, which was agreed as being:

"To promote the responsible development and management of a viable European aquaculture sector which will assure a high standard of quality food"

Recommending guiding principles also had the purpose of establishing a common base, through effective self-regulation. The hope is that this base can be used at the national level, distinguishing between the species and scale of farms where possible.

All other Codes that the group had seen addressed aquaculture's responsibility to sustainability, the environment and/or the welfare of the fish. The group quickly agreed to include these, but also included the important area of aquaculture's responsibility to the consumer, which was missing in these other documents.

I guess that most people agree to the fact that any industry should consider sustainable processes and reducing impact as much as possible and that "animals in your care" should have the best conditions possible.

This has been discussed for so many years now, that it is more or less obvious, but it seems that the more we concentrate on these facts, the more often it happens that the consumer is forgotten. The health of human beings sometimes appears to have been put in the background being replaced by animal welfare, and I presume and hope that this is a mistake, and that human welfare is not "forgotten" in the eagerness to optimise the conditions for the animals.

What level of impact can we expect to be acceptable in the future?

As new methods of analytical measurement develop, even down to the level of the picogramme, it has been possible to propose "acceptable levels" in almost anything and almost anywhere. The big question is always, "acceptable on what grounds?" Who should decide? Politicians? Analysts? Scientists? NGO´s? The producers?

Such decisions are often a balancing act between, for example, the fact that any human activity has an impact on the environment, and that an industry has to be profitable to survive. The type of discussion and the lack of trust between green or consumer organisations and producers will have to change in the future; if they do not, then I believe that public’s trust in both will disappear.

Broader perspectives have to be reached: "to give the best, most healthy product possible, with the lowest impact on the environment possible, using procedures that are economically viable"

If this basic perspective could be agreed, it would save a lot of work, and a lot of money, - the big question is, whether both sides can agree to this, and will be able to set this as a goal.

This Code of conduct is one of the steps the aquaculture producers have taken to go in this direction.

Working on the Code of conduct, it was realised that technical descriptions and complicated expressions are often used in such Codes. As one of the goals was that the paper should be for everybody, a lot of effort has been taken in using words and expressions that are known by the broadest audience.

Reading the Code of conduct, there will most certainly a lot of questions such as, " how do they want to do that?", or "Is this possible in reality" ?, but the best effort has been made to cover aquaculture in general and to have a high level of realism. If we lose the realistic goals, we will believe that the Code of Conduct be forgotten, and not used.

A wise man once said, "it is better to let the people kill the law, than let the law kill the people". He was absolutely right, because if the law is too hard to understand, not realistic and not fair, that is exactly what people will do - forget about it and thereby kill it.

The Code is divided into 5 main parts, which can be seen in the appropriate sub-sections,:

1. Guiding Principles
   To better explain the Guiding Principles, it should be noted that these are based on what most aquaculture producers are already doing, and if not, what we believe they should be doing. The principles are important in educating all interested parties in what the industry itself sees as common knowledge.
2. Fish Husbandry
3. Social Relationships
4. Economic Relationships
5. Consumers

The goal has been set to assure transparent development to the benefit of the consumer.

It has been a very interesting process to develop such a Code of Conduct, which hundreds of producers are, at this moment, reading through and hopefully accepting as a minimum for good conduct for thousands of farmers towards our surroundings. Hopefully in the future there will be found a level of conduct that is acceptable for everybody, my personal opinion is that most of the European aquaculture sector is almost achieving these levels - too many people just do not know it.

Vibeke Christensen
Vice-President of the FEAP