January 13, 2009

Indonesia has stopped importing F1-quality shrimp seeds from the US on weaker demand for large shrimps following the impacts of the global crisis on shrimp consumption.

To ensure seed availability, the Department of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (DMAF) will boost the production of F2-quality seeds to help Indonesia meet a target to produce 570,000 tonnes of shrimps this year.

DMAF's aquaculture fisheries director general, Made L. Nurdjana said the current top demand is for small shrimp with sizes of 70 to 100 kilogrammes per shrimp and F2-quality seeds are enough to produce such shrimps and F1-quality seeds were only needed to produce big shrimps.

Nurdjana said F2-quality shrimp seed is only sold for IDR12 per seed, making up the average production cost of IDR22,000 to IDR23,000 per kilogrammes for small shrimps.

He also said Indonesia imports an average of 40,000 F1-quality shrimp seeds from the US annually for INR35 per seed.

He added that the demand for small shrimps should be able to help Indonesia producing disease-free shrimps as big shrimps were more vulnerable to diseases.

Indonesian Shrimp Commission chairperson, Shidiq Moeslim shrimp farmers could save shrimp feed costs by 20 percent to 30 percent due to shorter production process.

Moeslim added that 70 percent of shrimp demand from the US switched to smaller and cheaper shrimps.

The global crisis, which once lowered shrimp prices by US$100 to US$200 per tonne, has also reduced shrimp export volume by 15 percent.

US$1 = IDR48.35 (Jan 13)