Seafood Champions

En Français (.pdf)

OSO Delta Pêche - 2009 Seafood Champion

Mathias Ismail is the Managing Director of OSO Delta Peche – an organic shrimp farm based in Madagascar. OSO was the first shrimp farm in the world to achieve the official organic certification AB Label (France / EU n°2092-91 regulation). Specialists have been brought in to develop nursery plantations and grow local species of trees, including mangroves, that are used to provide a resource for the local community, stabilize pond banks and protect the site from wind erosion. Mathias and OSO have made a commitment to choose sites and farming methods to minimize any impacts on the unique environment that Madagascar offers.

Sustainable management of natural resources

For three decades, OSO’s focus has been the sustainable management of Madagascar’s marine resources. With its new achievements in Organic Agriculture shrimp farming, OSO aims to promote sustainable management as a valuable technique while protecting Madagascar from the social and environmental damage commonly seen in Asian or South-American regions where intensive shrimp-farming takes place.

Sustainable and responsible management

OSO is an active member of GAPCM (Groupement des Aquaculteurs et Pêcheurs de Crevettes de Madagascar). Madagascar’s achievements in sustainability were officially recognized at the UNESCO Conference on Biodiversity in Paris, France in January 2005. Alongside NGOs such as WWF and ANGAP (the Madagascar National Park Agency), OSO is involved in the protection of coastal areas, mangroves and natural marine nurseries. Together with research institutes such as Ifremer (France) and CEVPM (France), OSO aims to bring practical industry knowledge to the development of TEDs (Turtle Exclusion Devices), BRDs (by-catch reduction devices), and in trawler-net technology with reduced ecological impact (OSO polyfoils). Research into organic solutions for the prevention of melanosis (oxidation of the shrimp shell in contact with the ambient air) is one of the biggest challenges currently being tackled by OSO and its partner R&D engineers.

The organic Madagascan Gambas

OSO was the first company to have received official organic certification under France’s AB national “Agriculture Biologique” standards. This official certification allows OSO to market its organic Madagascan Gambas under the AB brand and label in all the European Union’s member States (EU regulation n° n°834/2007). OSO’s hatchery (with an annual capacity of 120 million post-larvae prawns), the rearing farm (with its 425 hectares of 10-hectare ponds set in a freehold estate of 3,500 hectares) and the processing plant (daily capacity over 15 tons) are all covered and compliant with the organic agriculture certification requirements. In order to guarantee the best of its organic Gambas, the farm’s capacity is limited to approximately 2,000 tons a year.

What does organic mean for OSO?

The AB organic certification is the guarantee of a pesticide and chemicals-free process, the assurance of synthetic fertilizers’ exclusion from the rearing cycle, and protection of the biological characteristics of the Madagascan Gambas. Beyond the organic certification, OSO ensures, as part of its ETI (Ethical Trading Initiative) program, that its farming process has a positive impact on the Malagasy social environment, and contributes generously to the overall equilibrium of the vast ‘Tsingy of Ankarana’ National Park, next to which the OSO farm has been created.

OSO has built its rearing ponds in large expanses of mangrove-free flat land fed by the Indian Ocean. Rearing density is always kept at a minimum, i.e., an average of eight Gambas per square meter. Rearing density is a critical consideration in the organic certification.

OSO rears its prawns on marine and vegetarian feeds that are certified organic and GMO-Free. The feeds are also free from terrestrial animal protein. A the end of a six-month farming cycle, the OSO organic Gambas are harvested and transferred, from the harvest platform at the pond’s edged to OSO’s processing plant, within a guaranteed time-frame of 30 minutes maximum and at a temperature below the maximum of 5°C allowed. Government Authorities and Independent Control Agencies regularly audit OSO’s organic operations.

OSO - www.madagascar-gambas.com

Back to Profiles