May 5, 2010

Mexico projects record farmed shrimp output this year

Record numbers for Mexican farmed shrimp production - over 92,000 tonnes from state-run farms are anticipated this year, said the Sonora Subsecretariat of Fisheries and Aquaculture, a dependency of the Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock, Hydraulic resources, Fisheries and Aquaculture (SAGARHPA).

This year the farming of 22,000 hectares is planned, a higher figure than that registered in 2009. There is optimism regarding surpassing last year's record results of yields up to 3.6 tonnes per hectares, according to Prisciliano Melendrez Barriosthe, the fisheries subsecretary of SAGARHP.

"We have started with better projections in the indicators than last year and that gives us the idea that this year we can surpass the yields, the production and, above all, the commercial value of 2009 that reached US$300 million," he said.

In an initial stage, the first 363 hectares were smolt stocked in Cruz de Piedra and Bahia de Lobos.

In addition, as of mid-April, they have already been working in the farms of Tastiota, el Cardonal, Bahia Kino, in the central coast of Sonora; and in those of the south of the Mexican state, specifically in the areas of Agiabampo, Santa Barbara, Riito, Aquiropo and Siaric.

Shrimp production generates about 20,000 direct and indirect jobs annually - in the farming units, the post-larvae laboratories and in services related mainly to food, diesel, spare parts and materials, the Sonora Government reported.

At present, this state occupies first place in the national production of the food sector.

Last March, the Sonora State Aquaculture Health Committee (COSAES) presented a smolt stocking protocol in which the first smolts were planned for the centre of the State (Guaymas and bordering areas) as from March 20, in the South as from April 15, and in the North as from April 20.