Industry insider – José Villalon
Setting high standards
The aquaculture industry has made considerable progress in responsible practices over the past thirty years says José Villalon, Nutreco’s corporate sustainability director
JOSÉ VILLALON WAS TALKING TO JENNY HJUL M
uch of the early part of José Villa- lon’s career was spent in the shrimp farming sector, and like many of his peers he ‘always endeavoured’ to
take a responsible approach with regards to his farms’ production. Yet he concedes that when he started farming shrimp back in 1981, the sector’s primary focus was production, in particular acquiring the knowledge to increase both output and farming efficiencies. ‘I believe that from a commercial perspec-
tive, the sustainability principles that we rec- ognise so readily today were not on the radar until the late eighties, which demonstrates just how far we have come.’ He says his own experiences brought a
steady, dawning realisation that the aqua- culture industry needed to ensure that it operated on a sustainable level. The nutrient enrichment in the estuaries of Ecuador – ‘the country where I cut my teeth in aquaculture’ – was one of the most defining moments for him. Unfortunately, aggressive pond fertil- isation and water exchange resulted in algal blooms and significant oxygen depletion on many farms. ‘To see shrimp dying as a result of our own actions was a real wake-up call,’ says Villalon.
JOSÉ VILLALON BIOGRAPHY IN BRIEF
José Villalon, born in Cuba and raised in Arkansas, studied fish nutrition and gained his MSc at the University of Washington. He spent 26 years working in fish farming, mainly in shrimp production in Latin America, before being headhunted by the World Wildlife Fund to oversee its aquaculture programme. He oversaw the Aquaculture Dialogues there and the setting up of the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC), before joining Nutreco two years ago. An outspoken ambassador for producing more with less by farming responsibly, he is a frequent public speaker at international conferences as well as NGO and business forums on global sustainability issues.
‘From that moment on, there was a gradual awakening throughout the industry; we began to notice that the improvements being made in sustainable production were a benefit to business. ‘Today we see much more responsible nu-
trient and water management and that is be- cause of work started back in the late eighties.’ Prior to assuming his current position at
Nutreco, Villalon was vice-president of the WWF-US Aquaculture Programme. In 2006, WWF embarked upon a unique and ambitious initiative to create the environmental and social standards for 12 aquaculture species groups. Delivering consensus while incorporating the
input of more than 2,500 people from a broad variety of backgrounds, these Aquaculture Dialogues took more than six years to com- plete and ultimately led to the founding of the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC). Today, ASC standards cover salmon, shrimp, tilapia, pangasius, trout, abalone, bivalves and, from February this year, also seriola and cobia. Reaching these milestones was not without its challenges, however. ‘We were criticised by some sections of the
industry and academia for taking too long,’ says Villalon. ‘Unfortunately, they had failed to understand that the value proposition of the process was not limited to the development of credible standards. Its mandate was also to create awareness about inherent problems in each sector and to establish consensus about which were the biggest impacts.’ The process also filled in the gaps where there wasn’t good data or where it was contradictory. ‘In short, not only did the dialogues produce great standards, they also established a level of ‘buy-in’ for com-
panies to become responsible producers.’ Villalon told delegates at the AquaVision con- ference in Stavanger last year that in the next
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Left: Villalon spent 26 years in shrimp farming in Latin America. Above: He is a regular speaker at international conferences.
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