Standardization has become ubiquitous in the food supply chain since the consumers demand for sustainable products has highly increased over the years. The International organization for standardization (ISO) has reached more than 20 thousand standards in every fields worldwide. However, this system is hardly adaptable to all types of agriculture. Indeed, in Asia most farms are small and the certification system is often complex and costly for smallholders. Many efforts are needed in order to meet all the certification requirements. While the buyers can access new markets and share the costs with the consumers, the small producers usually get few benefits and might therefore be reluctant to do the effort. To face this problem, some companies decided to cover the whole supply chain and built partnerships with alternative certification bodies. Usually less costly, these alternatives ensure data verification and impartiality through the use of algorithms and partnerships with other institutions.
Some improvers like I-QUATIC are launching a farm management tool, using multiple data sources such as sensors, mobile devices and automated feeders for aquaculture. Thereby, their role is to predict economic and environmental viable decision-making. For farmers, these tools are useful to optimize their production and increase their benefits.
As for Verifik8 -a web and mobile application-, they assess sustainability in terms of production, environmental and social data for smallholders' farms in agriculture and aquaculture. Their main role is to put smallholders on the right tracks to sustainability without imposing them all the standards, costs and paperwork of the certification. The ultimate goal of these softwares is either to offer a cost-effective alternative to certification or to ease the access to certification. Farmers and buyers can therefore access new markets. This type of application enables those companies to go beyond certification and to ensure stability by monitoring their supplying farms on an everyday basis and the farmers to have a permanent buyer for their production.
For aquaponics, few standards have been developed because of the novelty of this production and the length of the certification process. Indeed, big organizations lack flexibility, it takes a lot of time and paperwork for them to adapt. Smaller alternatives like Verifik8 tool can be more reactive and can offer a complete solution of both farm management and sustainability assessment thanks to well-chosen partnerships. This adaptability is deeply needed in a changing market environment.