Industry Review
23
Breakout session on “Charting a future for the black tiger shrimp during GOAL 2019.
Demand
EU demand has been slow for the whole year and is expected to cross 600,000 tonnes which will be at the same volume for 2018. However, prices are expected to ease by 10%. The US is expected to grow about 1% and import about 650,000 tonnes and prices will slump by 5%. The interesting growth market is China where for the first time, grey imports through Vietnam were at a minimum due to the fierce clampdown by the Chinese government. The result is a significant increase of direct imports which allows accurate data to be collected. Undercurrentnews.com reported that in May 2019, volumes imported showed an increase close to 285% on volume but only 210% increase in value. This equates to a drop in average prices of 20%. A price war was predicted between Ecuador and India, but this did not happen. Inventory in China was estimated to be at 4-6 months before the Shanghai Seafood Exhibition in August, but China’s purchase levels exceeded expectations and prices increased by an average of USD0.15-0.20/kg. In September, an Ecuadorian shipment was tested positive for a virus and consequently all their shipments had to go through checks on arrival to China main ports. This dampened exports from Ecuador and prices crept up by USD1/ kg by October. However, a diplomatic meeting reversed this in November, and it will be interesting to see prices in 2020. By this time, major buying by China had already been done for Chinese New Year 2020 which falls on 25 January 2020.
Conundrum with the monodon shrimp
In the last marine shrimp review, it was reported that lured by demand from processing plants and the availability of post larvae from SPF broodstock, in Malaysia, there was a surge to farm the black tiger shrimp in 2018. This trend did not last long as in mid2019, farmers in the south of Peninsular Malaysia could not find markets for the large sized 20/kg or even the smaller sized 30-40/ kg shrimp. One possible reason was that prices were too high when large sized vannamei shrimp were much cheaper. Offer prices went down to around MYR38 (USD10/kg) for size 20/kg. At the same time, the live monodon shrimp market has been competitive; farms in Southern Thailand and Malaysia vie for the live shrimp market in China. Meanwhile, the indoor farms in China are supplying live shrimp. Prices are very good and did not put any caps on costs of production, which are high. Astaxanthin is added to the feeds to produce the red colour demanded by consumers.
Reviving monodon shrimp production
With the exception of Bangladesh, there has been little focus on production of the monodon shrimp. According to industry, 220,000 tonnes of this shrimp were produced in Vietnam, where there is a preference for a dual species industry – vannamei shrimp in intensive culture and monodon shrimp in areas more suited to extensive and semi-intensive culture practices. The production of monodon shrimp increased from 3% to 5% of total production of farmed shrimp in Thailand in 2019. In the Philippines, traditional farms focus on extensive culture of the monodon shrimp but with the success in farming of the vannamei shrimp with higher returns and also the fact that SPF post larvae are available, a younger generation taking over farms are now looking at converting to vannamei shrimp farming. Furthermore, the market in the Philippines still favours small sized shrimp, at 16g. According to an industry source, some farmers in Cebu and Negros produce monodon shrimp to large sizes (40g) to get the higher prices, above USD8-10/kg. The Aquaculture Department, Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Centre (AQD, SEAFDEC) started a “return to the monodon shrimp” program in 2017 and is in the midst of collecting wild shrimp as founder broodstock. “Despite perennial calls for the vannamei shrimp to be farmed in Bangladesh, the country has opted to stay with the monodon shrimp,” said Syed Mahmudul Huq, chairman of the Bangladesh Shrimp and Fish Foundation (BSFF). There is a large World Bank project to expand monodon shrimp production. During the recent GOAL conference held in Chennai in October, in the presence of representatives from shrimp farming countries, leading importers and retailers from Europe, USA, Japan and China, aquaculture scientists and disease specialists deliberated on how to revive the market and production of monodon shrimp. Led by George Chamberlain, Global Aquaculture Alliance (GAA), a round table session discussed ideas and a small group was formed to continue the dialogue and come up with concrete strategies and action plans for this purpose.
January/February 2020 AQUA Culture Asia Pacific