Status and Future Direction of Value Chain Analysis in the Indonesian Aquaculture

Aquaculture is expected to be the future 'rescuer' for the Indonesian fishery sector as the capture fishery production stops growing and the demand for fish and fish products is constantly increasing. Unfortunately, the country's aquaculture industry has not performed as it expected. Recognizing this, researchers from various institutions made efforts to uncover the underlying problems by adopting the Value Chain Analysis (VCA) approach. This paper is intended to observe key information generated by these VCA research activities, to identify grey areas, and to suggest the relevant future direction of aquaculture VCA research in Indonesia. The observed key information includes the focus commodity, the methodological approach, the aspect coverage and the main finding. Based on the reviewed reports of these VCA research activities, I summed up the following. Regarding the focus commodity, the reviewed research activities dealt with shrimp, fin fish and seaweed. And, to some extent, relevant information regarding these commodities is also available in VCA reports of non-aquaculture. From the methodological point of view, I found that these research activities employed a number of different complementing analytical tool variants, for example analytical hierarchy process (AHP), risk assessment, structural equation modeling (SEM). The aspect coverage of these research activities, on the other hand, range from technical ones such as technical risk and critical point identification to social ones such as stakeholder mapping, institutional analysis and market player interaction. These reports almost unanimously stated that the profit margins were overly enjoyed by processors and traders, and pointed out asymmetric market information and technology as the typical causes of this fact. Finally, what normally missing from these research activities are detailed operational recommendation and comprehensive aspect coverage; therefore, I would suggest that the future VCA research should always cover complete relevant aspects and come up with thorough operable recommendation.