The Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) and Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP) have released a new roadmap for landscape-level improvements in aquaculture. The roadmap endeavors to scale sustainable aquaculture by aligning and empowering stakeholders across regions through innovative, landscape-level solutions.
Aquaculture is one of the world’s fastest-growing food sectors and holds tremendous potential to provide climate-smart, nutritious, and sustainable food. Yet only 51% of global aquaculture is currently certified or rated against recognized sustainability standards. Existing methods often fail to account for the fragmented nature of small-scale production systems, particularly in regions where producers lack clear land ownership, access to financing, and strong regulatory oversight.
This initiative marks a shift from farm-level improvements to systems-level change, recognizing that shared landscapes—and the people and ecosystems within them—are interconnected. By aligning incentives, decreasing risk and input costs, and improving shrimp survival through better practices and technology, this model offers a scalable and impactful solution for sustainable aquaculture.
With shrimp now the most consumed seafood in the U.S. and among the top in the EU, demand continues to surge. India—particularly the state of Andhra Pradesh—has become a key player, producing nearly 1 million metric tons annually, primarily through smallholder farms under two hectares.
Andhra Pradesh’s stated ambition to increase its aquaculture area from 400,000 to 1 million acres by 2030 will bring rapid growth but also increased pressure on ecosystems and local communities. This roadmap uses shrimp farming in Andhra Pradesh as a pilot application, offering insights into how landscape-level approaches can address these complex challenges.
Jill Swasey, ASC Director of Impacts said, “Landscape approaches elevate the environmental and social performance of the region, reducing barriers and providing farmers with the opportunities to drive improvements, but this must rely on local expertise and organizations working in the sector. Demonstrating these collective improvements will deliver impacts at scale.”
The roadmap emphasizes collaboration among diverse stakeholders—farmers, government bodies, NGOs, and the private sector—to raise the environmental and social baseline across shared geographic areas. This strategy does not replace certifications or independent projects but rather builds on them, creating a collective, adaptive, and inclusive model to drive measurable change.
“Everything we do in-country should be done by local institutions, and there is tremendous local capacity in Andhra Pradesh,” said SFP Chief Executive Officer Jim Cannon. “Our role is just to connect the dots and work through established local players – they will be there long after you’re gone.”
The roadmap includes:
- A Step-by-Step Framework: Practical guidance for developing and implementing landscape-level sustainable aquaculture improvement projects (AIPs), adaptable globally.
- Application Case Study: Lessons from implementing the approach in Andhra Pradesh.
- Multi-Stakeholder and Holistic Focus: Encouraging collaboration across the supply chain, civil society, and government.
- Integration with Global Frameworks: Drawing from leading bodies of work such as the Global Sustainable Aquaculture Roadmap and the Guidelines for Seafood Jurisdictional Initiatives.
A.B.Ch.Mohan, Managing Partner, Seafood Solutions said “Our collaboration with the ASC and SFP team was a great experience, allowing us to build on our strengths and focus on the importance of effective stakeholder engagement and data synthesis for identifying actionable opportunities in shrimp aquaculture.”
The roadmap is the result of a Walmart Foundation grant to SFP focused on the Indian shrimp sector in the state of Andhra Pradesh, entitled ‘Building a foundation for landscape-level improvements in India’, part of a larger project on ‘Addressing the Carbon and Biodiversity Impacts of Aquaculture by Motivating Responsible Aquaculture Practices at Scale.’ SFP worked with ASC on the project, which combined an examination of landscape and jurisdictional initiatives with firsthand field learning from the Andhra Pradesh farmed shrimp industry to untangle the challenges to delivering incentives and driving environmental improvements at scale.
The roadmap is iterative, with each step designed to be refined and revisited as conditions evolve, ensuring long-term sustainability and inclusivity.
“In Andhra Pradesh, it was inspiring to see a coalition of local social, environmental, and aquaculture experts come together to lay the groundwork for holistic improvements to the farmed shrimp sector,” said SFP Aquaculture Information Manager Paul Bulcock. “I hope the insights they shared and the foundation they’ve built will be carried forward. Beyond that, I encourage other organizations to apply the Roadmap in different regions and commodities to identify what improvements are needed, where they’re needed, and who can drive them forward.”
