July | August 2010

Feature title: Thailand shrimp farming from boom to bust, to a sustainable future

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The International magazine for the aquaculture feed industry

 F: Shrimp farming F: Shrimp farming

Table 1: Thai exports of frozen and processed shrimp, 2009 ties. Emphasis has also been placed on
proper farm management practices to
(Value in million/£UK) Growth rate % Proportion %
reduce the risk of polluting emissions
No. Country 2008 2009 2009 2009 and which were suited to the type of
specie of shrimp cultured. Research in
1 USA 846.644 913.365 7.88 48.70 low polluting and cost effective feeds has
also led to benefits for both the environ-
2 Japan 328.386 386.374 17.66 20.60
ment as well as farmer.
3 Canada 100.647 104.281 3.61 5.56
Effort to eradicate diseases has largely
4 Germany 49.581 59.582 20.17 3.18 focused on those diseases which have
5 United Kingdom 56.082 70.665 26.00 3.77 a direct impact due to losses through
6 South Korea 48.781 40.728 -16.51 2.17 mortality.
Until recently, there has been little
7 Australia 36.285 46.552 28.30 2.48
attention paid to non-fatal diseases
8 Belgium 22.033 32.654 48.21 1.74
although the economic costs are high.
9 China 13.861 15.398 11.09 0.82 These are diseases that affect productiv-
10 The Netherlands 12.45 18.52 48.75 0.99 ity by reducing growth rates or affecting
Total (10 countries) 1,514.75 1,688.118 11.45 90.02 the quality and value of the shrimp
Others 163.301 187.2 14.63 9.98
produced and can impact profitability
significantly.
TOTAL 1,678.051 1,875.318 11.76 100.00
by Daphne Tan Health programs have since changed

Thailand shrimp farming

Source : Information and Communication Technology Center with Cooperation of The Customs to include also non-lethal diseases and
Deparment Information Center, Thai Frozen Foods Association
their syndromes. The use of specific
Note : Preliminary Data
pathogen-free (SPF) and specific patho-
gen-resistant (SPR) stocks associated

from boom to bust, to a sustainable future knowledge on standards, insufficient

technical assistance program, assess to
credit for investment, lack of information
on market and declining market price of
Coupled with declining prices of
shrimp in global markets, there has been
a shift away from such highly intensive
pond systems to semi-intensive systems
with the popular P vannamei species has
enabled multi-cropping and high-stocking
densities, capable of producing up to
20-30 tonnes per hectare per crop.

A
mong intensively cultivat-
ed aquatic species, shrimp
has one of the highest
values and is the most
important fishery commodity traded.
In 2008, the FAO estimated that world
production of shrimp under aquaculture
and capture was about six million tonnes.
Of this, an estimated 60 percent was traded,
ture species, mainly black tiger shrimp or P.
monodon in the early 1970s.
Significant yield increases were seen
from these early systems which utilised
small ponds enclosures and the introduc-
tion of hatchery-raised fry, supplementary
feeding and limited mechanical water man-
agement. This lifted the profile of shrimp
farming and led to its ‘boom years’ in the
decade starting from the late 1980s.
Phraya Delta regions as well as coastal areas
in 1990.
The second bust period for the industry
in 1996 led to a sharp drop in produc-
tion, leaving in its wake mounting debts
for farmers and a degraded environment
particularly, the destruction of mangrove
swamps.
Since then, in the early millennia,Thailand
has moved from P. monodon to P. vannamei,
shrimp are the major issues to deal with
to promote adoption of standards for
responsible shrimp farming among the
small-scale shrimp farmers.
Research into
shrimp farming
Research on the shrimp farming indus-
try has revealed that where methods are
highly intensive, production becomes
susceptible to internal operational prob-
across many parts of Thailand. With strict
international rules governing the quality
of exported shrimp, particularly with
regards to acceptable levels of chemicals
residues and antibiotics, this has encour-
aged the industry to move along in the
right direction.
Regulating farming
practices
To address these issues, the sector
The control of broodstock to ensure
that only true SPF species are supplied,
as opposed to the use of ‘home grown’
F1 broodstock, has also led to lower
levels of mortality, and greater success
for the Thai shrimp industry.
more inFormation:

bringing in over US$11 billion in export
revenue for producing countries.
But close on the heels of shrimp’s
enormous economic benefit have been
questions raised on the issue of sustainabil-
ity, notably the impact of farming practices
on the environment and natural resources.
These controversies have not been
lost on Thailand, the world’s largest pro-
ducer and exporter of shrimp. The ‘bust’
cycles that followed the boom
in Thailand’s shrimp sector
closely shadow the collapse
of the industry from heavy
demands that unsound prac-
tices had placed on the envi-
ronment, leading to diseases
and a host of other problems.
Shrimp farming in Thailand
began with semi-intensive monocul-
With the influx of foreign direct invest-
ment, particularly from Taiwan, training and
technology inputs, yields rose from 0.45
to 2.13 tonnes per hectare between 1987
and 1999.
Crop failures
But environmental pollution, depleted
water supplies, changes in water salinity
and disease problems soon led to massive
crop failures along the central Chao
or the Pacific white shrimp to counter the lems such as diseases and water quality, has identified several economic instru- Daphne Tan
a*scribe - communicating agriculture
disease problems commonly found in the and to external factors such as inad- ments to regulate farming practices.
Email: a.scribe.ag@gmail.com
former, such as Yellow Head and White Spot equate water sources and the weather. For instance, differentiated price per-
Symdrome Virus. As a result, the financial risks from mits were proposed to enforce specific
Despite its significant economic con- such systems are huge. zoning regions for shrimp farming activi-
tribution, shrimp farms in Thailand are
mainly small holder operations of under
1.5 hectares in size. Given the dominance
of small-scale shrimp farms in total pro-
duction, it is imperative that policies to Active ingredients for healthy animals
improve sustainability are targeted at
addressing the needs and concerns of
such farms.
A study carried out by the Asian Institute
of Technology in Thailand found
that lack of
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