Sixty aquaculture producers and Devida professionals participated in the training workshop on the sanitary management of aquaculture production centers offered by Sanipe in the Strategic Intervention Zones of Huánuco, Peru.
Photo: Produce.
Peru's National Fisheries Health Organization (Sanipes), an entity attached to the Peruvian Ministry of Production (Produce), is offering training in sanitary management to both officials and professionals from private companies in the country's aquaculture sector. These trainings also have a social aspect, as it is being developed as part of the Framework Agreement between Sanipes and the National Commission for Development and Life without Drugs (Devida).
At the end of the agreement, almost 600 aquaculture production centers will have strengthened their capacities in sanitary management and dozens of professionals will have reinforced their skills to support them when an infectious disease-related mortality event occurs in fish. During 2024 alone, Sanipes has issued approximately 800 technical protocols for sanitary clearance nationwide.
The first one of the training workshops recently offered by Sanipes trained sixty aquaculture producers and Devida professionals in the sanitary management of aquaculture production centers in the so-called Strategic Intervention Zones (ZEI) in Huánuco, in the center-north of the country.
The ZEI are geographic areas that are betting on alternative crops to replace illicit crops and the illicit drug trade. Among these alternative options, in addition to products such as coffee, bananas, oil palm and tropical fruits, there are also fish farms. Since 2003, the government has been providing them with technical assistance, inputs, and tools to help them achieve their integral development.
The activity developed now by Sanipes and Devida promoted the sanitary qualification of aquaculture production centers, thus ensuring the health and safety of the products to be extracted. During the workshop, Sanipes strengthened the capacities of the participants on the requirements for sanitary qualification, the preparation of a plan and descriptive report, the sanitary requirements for aquaculture production centers, and the preparation of good aquaculture practices and hygiene and sanitation manuals.
It is estimated that, at the end of this agreement, there will be 542 centers in the AREL (Aquaculture of Limited Resources) category strengthened in sanitary management, and 57 centers in the AMYPE (Aquaculture of Micro and Small Enterprises) category sanitarily authorized.
To date, there are 3,162 aquaculture production centers in the AMYPE and AMYGE categories with granted rights. In the last 10 years, there has been an exponential growth of aquaculture activity in Peru, so there is currently a gap of about 75% at the national level.
The second training workshop offered by Sanipes served to train public employees. On this occasion, twenty professionals from Produce, Devida, and Fondepes (Peruvian National Fisheries Development Fund) strengthened their capacities in sanitary management and sampling for the diagnosis of infectious diseases in tropical fish.
During the workshop, participants learned how to perform a necropsy, external and internal evaluation of clinical signs and organ sampling in tropical fish (tilapia Oreochromis sp) for disease diagnosis.
In addition, they learned how to manage notifications of outbreaks or suspicions of infectious diseases in hydrobiological resources - from the criteria to be taken into account for the report and the process of attention to the closure of the notification. They also reinforced their knowledge of current sanitary regulations and the sanitary authorization of aquaculture production centers.
Vanessa Quevedo, deputy director of the Sanipes Health Sub-Directorate, explained that with this training, professionals will be prepared so that, when a mortality event associated with an infectious disease occurs, they can immediately guide and support aquaculture operators in taking samples and filling out the notification report. This, in turn, will make it easier for the health authority to take the corresponding actions.
Furthermore, Sanipes - which in June alone trained more than 1,300 aquaculture agents and more than 10,000 in the first half of 2024 - reported that in October of this year, it will hold a similar training in Huánuco, the area where the workshop on sanitary management of aquaculture production centers in Strategic Intervention Zones (ZEI) has already been held.