Fisheries

APRI and SFP Control Document System

by adminapri July 12, 2015 0 comments

Since early 2015, APRI and SFP have been crafting and trialing a Control Document (CD) system. In order to strengthen compliance among producers and facilitate the supply chain’s accountability, traceability and verification; SFP has recommended the adoption of Control Documents subject to third-independent party audits.
The CD give buyers new tools to use with their suppliers to verify that the products being traded are from legitimate producers operating in legal fisheries and that the gear employed as well as the captures landed are compliant with local and international regulations. The control-document specifies that not only does a particular shipment/product bought need to be legal within national regulations, it further requires that the entire product the supplier handles, for all customers, is legal also.
The CD comprises three components that ensure its successful application: a) a letter of warranty or private contract that requires legal trading of fish products along the entire commercial chain; b) a list of control points that conform to the full regulatory and legal framework relevant to the fish products marketed; and c) a guide to a third party audit mechanism, which lists the main control check points, from producer to retailer, and identifies recognized and reputable independent auditing bodies.
CDs are adopted on a voluntary basis by those producers, traders, and/or suppliers that wish to ensure a sustainable supply of marine products to responsible consumers all over the world, while combating IUU effectively and supporting livelihoods in producer countries.
The supply chain participating in the process needs to agree on the penalties framework, including full and potentially permanent exclusion from the supply chain for violators of the CD stipulations (e.g. suppliers can be delisted due to failure or refusal of an audit and denied contracts until compliance is verified at their cost).
The CD is a traceability and documentation process to be implemented by all of the segments of the supply chain (collectors/cooking stations, mini-plants and processors) in order to promote compliance to new MMAF regulations and generate the records and documents of the supply chain application and verification of the new regulations.