Certified standards and vertical coordination in aquaculture: The case of pangasius from Vietnam

• The role of standards and vertical coordination in Vietnamese pangasius value chain
• Certified standards and vertical coordination are used to address market failures
• Ensuring stable supply of farmed pangasius is a serious challenge for processors
• This is addressed through vertical integration rather than standards or contracts

This paper explores the interaction between food standards and vertical coordination in the Vietnamese pangasius sector. For farmers and processors alike, the adoption of standards is motivated by a desire to improve market access by ensuring high quality supply. Instead of encouraging the application of standards and contract farming, processing companies prefer to vertically integrate primary production largely due to concerns over the stable supply of pangasius with satisfactory quality and safety attributes. These tendencies increase the market dominance of industrial farming and worsen the position of small household farms.