yabby farmer wins battle

Yabby farmer and member of the NSW Aquaculture Association has had a huge win against Primesafe rules around the auditing and costs for yabby farmers to produce and sell yabbys for human consumption.

Steve Chara of Otway Yabbys has been battling Primesafe when their new seafood licensing laws came into effect some years ago.  The new rules required yabby farmers to purge their crayfish prior to sale (something that no other state in Australia requires), though most do it as best practice.  It did not stop there, the farmers are required to submit their farms to quarterly audits from Primesafe.

All in all a great win for Steve and I hope this puts Primesafe on the back foot because out of the 65 yabby farmers that were operational at the time these rules were introduced, without industry consultation mind you, there are only about 5 left.  The others walked away.  Good on Steve for sticking it out.

The newspaper article of this win for aquaculture can be downloaded below

Yabby dabba do

Regards
Paul Van der Werf
President 2013