The Aquatic Animal Health Programme assists members to reduce the risks of aquatic animal disease impacting the livelihoods of farmers, national economies, trade, environment and human health by:
Improving regional cooperation in aquatic animal health and welfare.
Developing and implementing national strategies on aquatic animal health.
Improving surveillance, reporting and response to disease emergencies.
Promoting harmonisation of diagnostic procedures and risk assessment.
Widespread promotion of better aquatic animal health management practices at the farm level.
Maintaining environmental integrity while increasing food production will require farming systems to reduce their unit production environmental footprint. The Sustainable Farming Systems Programme aims to help aquaculture become a more efficient user of natural resources. The programme develops better management practices for major aquaculture farming systems, and promotes aquaculture as a secondary or additional use of water resources. The programme focusses on practical interventions that can be directly achieved by small-scale farmers in a developing country context.
The Gender Programme was established to ensure that NACA implements the action plans on gender mainstreaming within its activities. With a continued interest in embracing gender integration among relevant agencies, NACA aims to build up capacity of members in gender mainstreaming in all its undertakings, and motivate support and action globally. Adding a gender dimension in aquaculture value chains will give assurance to consumers that seafood has been produced sustainably.
Culture-based fisheries (CBF) are stock enhancement practices to improve the productivity of water bodies that do not have enough natural recruitment to support a capture fishery. The stocked seed usually rely on the natural productivity of the water body as food supply.
The Asia Regional Advisory Group on Aquatic Animal Health meets annually to discuss regional disease issues including emerging disease threats. The group was established by the Governing Council of NACA to provide advice to member governments in the Asia-Pacific region. This collection comprises the reports of the annual meetings of the group. The reports are a rich source of information concerning the current disease status of the region and new or emerging diseases of aquatic animals.
