WWW.WAS.ORG • WORLD AQUACULTURE • SEPTEMBER 2024 9 CHAPTER REPORTS World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) as a clean country for ‘yellowhead disease,’ a major infectious disease of shrimp, which was first reported in Thailand and has since been reported in nine other countries, including China, causing mass mortality in shrimp. Yellowhead disease has been designated by the WOAH as an infectious disease requiring national-level management. The WOAH inspected a total of 147 shrimp farms in Korea over ten years from 2014 to 2023 and confirmed that there was no outbreak of ‘yellowhead disease’ and granted Korea the status of a ‘yellowhead disease-free country’ in recognition of its diseasefree history and the safety of the country’s aquatic biological quarantine and biosecurity system. As a result, Korean shrimp farmers can exempt their shrimp from yellowhead disease testing when exporting to other countries. Korea has been recognized as a clean country for six kinds of marine biological diseases, including salmonid infectious salmon anemia (2019), salmon Gyrodactylus salaries (2020), abalone herpes virus infection (2021), shrimp infectious subcutaneous and hematopoietic necrosis (2022), salmonid alphavirus infection (2023) and shrimp yellowhead disease (2024). Minister Kang Do-hyung said, “With this clean country status, the excellence and safety of our country’s aquatic organism infectious disease management technology have been proven in the international community.” He added, “We will continue to work further to strengthen the management of aquatic organism infectious diseases and develop management technologies to add further and expand the clean country status for aquatic organism infectious diseases of major domestic aquaculture species.” Source: MOF Press Release, June 27, 2024 Happy 13th Gim’s Day (Laver Day) Vice Minister Song Myung-dal of the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries (MOF) attended the 13th Gim’s Day commemoration ceremony held at the Wando Culture and Arts Center on June 13 to encourage workers in the Gim (laver in Korean) industry. In his congratulatory speech at the commemoration ceremony, Vice Minister Song said, “I hope that you will have pride in producing the nation’s representative marine products loved by people around the world, as well as a sense of mission that you are responsible for the meals of our people.” He added, “The government will generously support all production, distribution, and export stages and will do its best to ensure that the Korean people can easily enjoy high-quality seaweed.” After the ceremony, Vice Minister Song held a meeting with the Gim (laver) production, processing, and distribution industry to discuss cooperation to stabilize supply and demand, including sharing information on Gim inventory and diverting stockpiles and exports to the domestic market, and ask them to actively participate in government policies to stabilize seaweed supply and demand. Last year, despite the slowdown in global consumption, Korea’s seaweed exports exceeded 1 trillion Korean Won (about $770 million USD), setting a record. Still, wholesale and consumer prices rose due to a significant increase in export demand. In response, the MOF announced a plan to stabilize the supply and demand of Gim on April 25 and has been implementing various policies such as developing new farms, temporarily reducing tariffs on imported Gim, and supporting discount events. Source: MOF Press Release, June 13, 2024 Korean White Leg Shrimp to be Branded as “Han-sae-woo” The Korea Shrimp Aquaculture Federation (KSAF) decided to unify the name of Heun-da-ri-sae-woo (white leg shrimp in Korean, Litopenaeus vannamei) farmed in Korea as ‘Han-saewoo (Han means Korea and sae-woo is shrimp)’ and applied for trademark registration of the image of Han-sae-woo to the Korean Intellectual Property Office on June 11. It was registered on August 5 (Registration No. 30-1270893). The KSAF believes that a unified name is necessary because white leg shrimp has been called various names, such as Dae-ha (giant shrimp), Wang-sae-woo (king shrimp), Heun-sae-woo (white shrimp), and Heun-da-ri-sae-woo (white legged shrimp), depending on the region, causing confusion among consumers. The KSAF will use this as an opportunity to widely promote it to the public by declaring a Shrimp-Eating Day (Gui Day) on September 2 this year. As a large amount of white leg shrimp and black tiger shrimp have been imported from Southeast Asia and Latin America, discrimination between these imported shrimp and domestic shrimp has emerged, so the name Han-sae-woo will be used for domestic shrimp produced in Korea, such as Han-woo (Han means Korea and woo is cow) and Han-don (Han means Korea and don is pig). ‘Han’ indicates all cultural trends originating in Korea, denoted by the letter ‘Han’ or ‘K,’ like K-POP and K-Food. Safe and clean shrimp cultivated without antibiotics in HACCP farms will be sold with the certification mark of the KSAF to ensure quality so that consumers can confidently eat Hansae-woo (Korean shrimp). Source: KSAF Haha Newsletter No. 11, September 1, 2024 — Ik Kyo Chung, President hopes that it would become a beacon for those seeking information about aquaculture. It is by design meant to be inclusive, accessible and understandable to a wide audience and those beyond the typical scientific journal reader. Please do your part in driving traffic to it and consider contributing an article. You can see from this and past President, cont. from page 2 issues the types and variety of topics and formats. Please contact the editor with your ideas. If I or any of the board members can be of service, please feel free to reach out. — David Cline, President, World Aquaculture Society
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