Information practices for improved sustainability assurance in Vietnamese shrimp aquaculture

This paper explores the performance and embeddedness of information practices performed by smallholder farmers in Vietnamese shrimp aquaculture in response to private sustainability interventions. Using a social practice intervention framework, we analyse how existing information practices embedded in the wider social lives of farmers are affected by the adoption of both analogue and digital reporting methodologies prescribed by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council and VerifiK8. Our results demonstrate how these reporting methodologies are not aligned to the performance and embeddedness of existing information practices, and how this misalignment has undermined their function and performance. The paper concludes that understanding information practices offers important insights for redesigning these reporting interventions and, in doing so, better support both the goals of farmers and the improvement of shrimp sustainability. These observations hold implications for improving the impact of informational interventions for not only shrimp production but smallholder production in a range of food sectors.