Five years after the tsunami that devastated the east coast of Japan, the Miyagi Prefecture Fisheries are celebrating a major milestone.
The Shizugawa Branch of the Miyagi Prefecture Fisheries Co-operative became the first farming collective in Japan to achieve Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) certification on 30 March 2016, following an independent assessment of its oyster farms against the ASC Bivalve Standard by Japan-based certification assessment body, AMITA.
The accredited farms are situated just off the Pacific Ocean coastline in the southern half of Shizugawa Bay in Togura, Minamisanriku Town, northeast of the Miyagi Prefecture, in northern Japan. Most of the aquaculture facilities along this area were destroyed by the tsunami that followed the devastating Tōhoku earthquake in March 2011.
Toshio Sasaki of Miyagi Fishery Cooperative said, “We are so happy about gaining this certification. We members of Shizugawa Fishery Cooperative Association lost everything in the tsunami, not only all our farming facilities but our homes as well as family and friends. Fortunately the family members and small children who survived the tsunami gave us hope to start again.”
Prior to the tsunami, smallholders ran intensive family farms on small sea surfaces which were overcrowded and unsustainable. Starting over provided an opportunity to introduce responsible practices. The local community joined forces with World Wildlife Fund Japan (WWF) to revive the seabed using best practices, including reducing production outputs by a third each year in order establish a thriving and balanced base of aquaculture production. To better manage the farms and the updated farming methods, the farms joined together to form a co-operative, known as Miyagi Prefecture Fisheries Co-operative, Shizugawa Branch.
The co-operative participated in three-year pilot programme funded by a state government grant. At the end of the pilot, families were encouraged to manage their own farms, in accordance with the new responsible farming practices to aid the recovery of the fragile ecosystem.
According to Haruko Horii, Standards and Certification Coordinator at ASC, “This achievement is a great example of the resilience of the fisheries community in Myagi. They are succeeding by not only rebuilding their community, they are also improving it. I am very happy to finally see the first certified farm in Japan coming from this area, and I believe ASC certification will bring further benefit to the community and hope for the future.”
