An international review of the NPF tiger prawn assessment agreed with the conclusions of the 2001 assessment that tiger prawn stock levels were critically low, especially for brown tiger prawns. The 2002 assessment further concluded that brown tiger prawn levels were too low and also emphasized the critical need for an independent monitoring program given the confounding and complexities of the catch rate data used as the sole index of abundance in the NPF assessments. The 2003 assessment suggests that brown tiger prawn stocks are recovering but, given the high level of uncertainty in the assessment, this recovery needs to be independently tested.

The survey data used to determine the initial design for this project (see Background) was more than a decade old and did not cover the full study area. Since the first survey, changes have been made to the survey design to improve the accuracy of the abundance estimates obtained from the surveys. This design needs to be further developed and tested. Work has also begun on developing methods for incorporating the results of the surveys into stock assessments, but more research is required to overcome several technical difficulties encountered.

In this proposal, the CSIRO salaries associated with testing the survey design and with developing new methods of incorporating the results into stock assessments are seen as research. We are therefore requesting about $47,000 from FRDC’s MOU funds. For this reason, CSIRO is also supporting the project to the scale of about $86,000. The remainder of the project, some $520,000, will be underwritten by the industry as agreed in NORMAC, June 2003. The industry and NORMAC have also re-affirmed the long-term need for regular industry-funded monitoring surveys based on the output of this project.

There is a need to provide an updated design for the NPF that would work in the long-term to provide indices of abundance for key species and enhance a difficult-to-use commercial catch rate series. Furthermore, this design needs to address target, byproduct and possibly some effects-of-trawling issues to make the best use of the surveys.

International

Developments in the global trade of food have exposed primary producers to a new set of opportunities and risks that are best managed with risk assessment. Estimating ‘equivalence’ is now the process used to determine whether or not Australian products can penetrate foreign markets, and whether or not products produced abroad can penetrate Australian markets. This involves an appraisal of whether the imported product presents the same or lesser magnitude of human-health risk as posed by the domestic product. Under the guidelines produced by the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the assessment of equivalence demands the conduct of a food safety risk assessment by the importing country. A country can deny the entry of a product if it fails to meet the equivalence standard. Thus exporting nations require a pool of scientific expertise to conduct their own risk assessments and also to appraise the appropriateness of those produced by their trading partners.

National

At the domestic level, state food safety legislation and food standards are increasingly based on the risk assessment approach. It is timely, therefore, for industry to (develop and) validate an integrated supply chain approach to food safety that has international standing as a basis for meeting public health and trade access requirements.

This project will provide an objective, transparent and scientifically robust basis for the management of food borne hazards and shelf life in the prawn industry. We propose to conform to the internationally accepted approach for the conduct of food safety risk assessment that is promulgated by CODEX, FAO and WHO (Anon., 2002).

Industry

This is an opportunity to work at all levels of the supply chain to ensure the safe reputation that SGWCPFA prawns enjoy is confirmed and maintained by validated quality systems. While the project develops and pre-tests a framework to validate the production of cooked prawns produced under the APPA Code it will provide industry with applied recommendations on the value of routine microbiological monitoring to support other audit verification processes.

Australia’s major export market is Japan, a country in which food safety and quality are issues receiving much publicity. It is clear that Japanese consumers and, therefore, the buyers of Australian prawns will demand increasingly higher standards and assurances that quality standards are and will be maintained. The same arguments also apply to Europe where food quality and safety are seen as priority items in market access. The Australian industry must meet these demands or lose market share to competing suppliers or other products and/or suffer price reductions. Measures to ensure product integrity and safety must be implemented at the beginning of the supply chain - in this context, on board trawlers and in processing establishments - and must be seen by customers to be consistent, which requires proper training of crews and an audit system to provide assurance.

The domestic market for sea caught prawns, while less valuable, is equal in tonnage, with half the total catch (14,500 tonnes) sold on the local market. Competition from imported cooked farmed prawns and domestic farmed prawns is intense. Moreover, a large percentage of the local prawns are cooked on board boat. This is a ‘high risk’ process in food safety terms and all boats will be required to implement a food safety plan under proposed national regulations (Australia New Zealand Food Authority Proposals P145 & P160).

Further proposed changes to the Food Standards Code impact on the use of sulphur dioxide in prawns to prevent black spot. Ensuring all prawns are packed with a low residual SO2 content will be critical to avoid additional labelling.

A total quality management system for the prawn industry which is third party auditable and which links vessels and processing factories under a prawn mark will satisfy the needs of all sectors. There is a window of opportunity for the prawn industry to set the benchmark for prawn quality world wide.