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NATURLAND, Germany to produce Organic fresh water prawn and shrimp in societies which are followingextensive farming practices.Efforts in linking farmer societies to market:NaCSA is working with Sustainability conscious buyers in USA who are interested to procure chemical free shrimpproduced by Society farmers and planning to sell these products under a premium brand. The shrimp marketingplan of NaCSA is to link each society to processors/exporters identified by the buyer so that all the shrimp from theparticular society is marketed to one exporter. The benefits for the society farmers is there will be better pricerealization as there is no agent or middle men involved, for the processors they can buy all the produce from thesociety as one unit which provides the advantage of larger integrated units where the harvests can be coordinatedand better harvest and post harvest practices can be implemented in societies to improve the over all quality of theshrimp and traceability can be maintained. NaCSA is working closely with exporters and keep them abreast withfarmers organizational effort. There is a growing awareness among exporters community that this model is thebest way to address many food safety and quality issues and they have shown interest to adopt societies forbackward linkage. Once the incentives (better price) is paid to good quality, antibiotic free, traceable shrimp, thebetter practices will be followed by more and more farmers. We are expecting about 5000 MT of BMP shrimpproduction during 2009.Market requirements:Responding to demands by environmental organizations supermarkets are increasing their efforts to sell fish fromsustainable sources. The retailers are looking for the following key indicators;• Producers comply with local laws• Minimize the impacts of shrimp farming on the environment by protecting sensitive habitats such asmangrove forests and wetlands• Monitoring water quality to prevent pollution• Farm to fork traceability is required from the hatcheries where the young shrimp are first hatched, to theponds where they are raised and to the plants where they are processed• Antibiotics, hormones and toxic chemicals should not be used• Producers must provide detailed information on farming practices and pass independent third-partyaudits.Society farmers in India meet most of the market requirements thus in a position to realise better price for theirproduce.ConclusionCrisis (disease and water quality problems) pushed farmers to cooperate; so perhaps the main lessons learntcentre around the power of social organization rather than the impact of more technical changes. Many of thedisease problems were earlier related to lack of cooperation among farmers, who were using a common watercanal and their need for cooperation in the timing of release of waste pond water and the intake of “clean” pondwater both via this shared canal. Experiences of MPEDA-NACA and NaCSA shows that adoption of farm levelBetter Management Practices (BMP) through cluster farming are promising models for small scale farmers to worktogether to reduce risks and earn their livelihood by helping the industry to meet customer demand throughadoption of sustainable and environmentally friendly farming practices. The better market access for societyproduce would further motivate more and more farmers to grow the shrimp to the buyer specifications and ensuresteady supply of best quality, chemical free, traceable shrimp. This market recognition for the society producewould help NaCSA spread the message of “Sustainable Aquaculture” far and wide to more areas across India and127