MPEDA Certified First Hatchery in India Through Shaphari Certification

KOCHI:
The Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA), Ministry of Commerce & Industry Government of India has certified M/s.SVR Hatcheries, East Godavari District, AP, as the first shrimp hatchery in the country to get SHAPHARI certification for the production of antibiotic free seed after successfully completing the mandatory audits.

In this connection, K S Srinivas, Chairman, MPEDA, has distributed the SHAPHARI Certificate to Prathipati Veerabhadra Kumar , Managing Partner of M/s.SVR Hatcheries, East Godavari District, Andhra Pradesh through Video Conference.

“SHAPHARI Certification of Hatchery scheme of MPEDA will help farmers to easily identify the good quality shrimp seed producer whereas the certified
hatcheries are benefitted by higher demand for their seeds among the farmers” K S Srinivas said.

Ramraj, President of All India Shrimp Hatchery Association (AISHA), Balasubramaniam, Secretary, Indian Prawn Farmers Federation, Dr. P. Shankar Rao, Joint Director from Department of Fisheries Andhra Pradesh, K S Pradeep, Secretary MPEDA, Dr. M Karthikeyan, Director MPEDA were present during the virtual programme.

Frozen shrimp is the largest exported seafood item constituting 50.58% in quantity and 73.21% in terms of total USD earnings during 2019-20. Incidence of rejection of seafood consignments sourced from farms due to the presence of antibiotic residue is a matter of concern for Indian exporters.

In order to address this food safety issue in farmed produce, apart from National Residue Control Programme (NRCP) and Pre Harvest Test (PHT) initiatives implemented by MPEDA, development of Certification scheme in Aquaculture named as ‘SHAPHARI (Sanskrit word meaning superior quality of fishery product suitable for human consumption) is another milestone initiative to address the issue.

The certification of aquaculture was proposed as a market based tool for hatchery/farmers in order to adopt Good Aquaculture Practices (GMP) and
produce good quality antibiotic free shrimp products addressing food safety concerns of global consumers. This scheme is based on Food & Agriculture
Organization (FAO)’s technical guidelines on aquaculture certification. The entire process of certification is implemented through a webportal (https://aquacert.mpeda.gov.in) to minimise human errors and to ensure higher credibility and transparency in the scheme implementation.