ASC Launches New Online Farm Mapping Tool to Strengthen Data Submission

Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) has launched a new Online Farm Mapping Tool (OFMT) designed to make the submission and validation of farm boundary data faster, clearer, and more transparent for certificate holders and Conformity Assessment Bodies (CABs).

The new tool allows certificate holders to draw and submit polygon drawing data directly within the platform, while CABs can review and verify farm locations and boundaries with greater precision and transparency. Integrated automatic validation checks help streamline audit preparation, reduce potential errors, and strengthen the integrity of site boundary information across ASC programmes.

Transparency is at the heart of ASC’s work, ensuring our commitment to responsible aquaculture is visible, verifiable, and accountable.

ASC CEO Chris Ninnes said, “Our new farm mapping tool brings many new innovations and developments to greatly enhance the ability of farms to easily enter farm polygon data. The many data layers available in this tool also allow CABs to confirm the location of the farm relative to protected areas and proximity to critical habitats such as mangroves and sea grass beds and whether these have changed over time. It is intuitive to use and provides easy access to information relevant for our certification processes.

This tool, a distant pipedream for many years, clearly illustrates how ASC is adapting technology to make life easier for farm clients and their CABs. Even better, it was developed in-house, and I know the team are already working on how this tool will support more powerful opportunities into the future.”

The OFMT also improves the user experience by enabling direct submission from within the application, reducing the workload by removing the need for downloading, renaming, and manually transferring files. Once a farm’s details are submitted, they appear instantly on the ASC certification portal (MyASC), allowing for a more dynamic and responsive mapping process.

While spatial data improves accuracy, on-site audits remain the definitive step in certification.