Selling Fish across the Strait: Taiwanese Aquaculture, Trade Governance, and Sustainability
Abstract
This research examines how Taiwanese fish farmers have globalized their farmed seafood and pursued sustainable aquaculture since 1968, the year that Taiwan succeeded in artificially propagating tiger prawns (Penaeus monodon). My key question is whether and how the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA)—a bilateral free trade agreement signed by Taiwan and China in 2010—affects Taiwanese fish farmers. In this agreement, China made concessions by eliminating tariffs on the enlisted Taiwanese seafood products, focusing primarily on grouper (Ephinephelus) and milkfish (Chanos chanos). My analysis is based on an integrated approach that combines political ecology and governance. I argue that although the ECFA fuelled cross-strait economic cooperation between 2011 and 2015, exporting seafood to China was not the only strategy Taiwanese fish farmers used to respond to globalization and to pursue sustainable aquaculture. In fact, even before the ECFA was signed, Taiwanese fish farmers had enhanced their environmental management and food safety practices. They continuously developed new categories and marketed their seafood in diverse markets, including Taiwan’s domestic market.
The ECFA had five significant impacts on Taiwanese aquaculture: First, Taiwanese fish farmers and business people could now use both normal and petty trade routes to export seafood to China, which they decided on by calculating their costs and benefits. Second, China’s policies and strategies, such as sponsoring a five-year milkfish trade contract in Taiwan and establishing a domestic anti-corruption policy, affected the export volume and farm-gate price of Taiwanese milkfish and grouper. Third, the Taiwanese government further strengthened its regulation of the seafood transport and food safety aspects of Taiwanese aquaculture. Fourth, Taiwanese fish farmers who sustained their businesses by selling seafood to the domestic market or other export markets were less influenced by the ECFA than other fish farmers who exported most of their products (such as grouper) to China between 2011 and 2015. Taiwanese fish farmers responded to the changing seafood trade policies and global food safety concerns by strengthening the existing markets, exploring new markets, selecting seafood species, processing the raw fish into other products, and developing more ecological farming practices.
Description
Keywords
Anthropology, Anthropology--Cultural, Fisheries and Aquaculture
Citation
Cheng, S. K. (2017). Selling Fish across the Strait: Taiwanese Aquaculture, Trade Governance, and Sustainability (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/27747