Recovery, revision and revised expectations for world shrimp farming
Shrimp farming is flourishing in some regions, languishing in others. Official statistics have lost touch with reality and overall output is far below predicted long-term levels.
By Eric J. Brooks
An eFeedLink Hot Topic
As 2018's shrimp farming season ramps up, the industry finds itself in paradoxical states of simultaneous stagnation and boom. Rapid production increases in some regions are concurrent with downward revisions of predicted or previously recorded output in other nations. Beneath a veneer of bright sounding statistics, most shrimp farmers hope that a highly challenging decade will mercifully end.Superficially, unexpectedly strong production growth in South Asia and Latin America will cause world shrimp output to rise some 7%, to a Global Aquaculture Alliance (GOAL) estimated 4.6 million tonnes in 2018, from 4.3 million tonnes in 2017. Since bottoming out at 3.49 million tonnes in 2013, output has risen at a 5.7% annual rate -but what a rough, jagged rise it has been.
At the Global Seafood Market Conference (GSMC) held in Miami, USA in late January, conference panelists predicted a healthy increase in world shrimp exports, from just below 3.3 million tonnes last year to as high as 3.6 million tonnes this year. Most of this as we shall see, later is due to a sharp output increase in only two countries.
Back in 2010, most conference panelists expected output to be at least 5.6 million tonnes by 2018 and to exceed 6.0 million tonnes by 2020. The FAO for example still has an official output figure of 4.88 million tonnes for 2015. -That's 29% or 1.39 million tonnes less than 2015's actual world shrimp output, 0.5 million tonnes less than 2017's production and 0.28 million tonnes below what has been predicted for 2018.
At the October 2017 GOAL Conference (www.aquaculturealliance.org/advocate/goal-2017-shrimp-production-survey) it was stated that "According to the FAO, global shrimp production reached 4.05 million tonnes in 2011 and then increased to 4.17 million 2012 (+3.0%), 4.30 million tonnes in 2013 (+3.2%) 4.68 MMT in 2014 (+8.8%), and 4.88 MMT in 2015 (+4.2%)."
By comparison, "GOAL surveys suggest that world production contracted from 3.87 MMT in 2012 to 3.49 MMT in 2013 (-10%), strongly bounced back to 4.30 MMT (+3%) in 2014 …to fall once again to 3.99 MMT (-7%) in 2015 due to disease problems in virtually all major countries in Asia."
The discrepancy between official FAO and actual farmed shrimp output occurred when GOAL was forced to slash production estimates for many nations including Thailand, China, Indonesia and Vietnam by anywhere from 100,000 to one million tonnes.
For example, GSMC panelists estimated that China's 2018 Pacific whiteleg shrimp production at 625,000 tonnes. That's 100,000 tonnes more than its 2015 output of 525,000 tonnes -but exactly the same level it was at in 2015- a year when the FAO statistics initially estimated output of all Chinese shrimp species at a whopping 1.89 million tonnes.
Since the FAO statistics came out, China's whiteleg shrimp output figures have been revised steadily downwards. It should also be noted that even FAO statistics show that since 2000, total Chinese production of non-Pacific whiteleg shrimp species such as monodon, greasy back and local shrimp varieties has never exceeded 200,000 tonnes.
Conclusion? For the past three years, Chinese production of all shrimp species has stagnated in the 700,000 to the 800,000-tonne range -and a far cry from the over 1.2 million tonnes produced in 2011 [of which GOAL estimates 1.06 million tonnes was whiteleg shrimp]. Even if Chinese whiteleg shrimp output 'recovers' by 19% and 100,000 tonnes as the GSMC panel expects, China's cumulative 2018 output of all shrimp species would be lucky to achieve 830,000 tonnes.
While Chinese production is stuck at pre-2010 levels, consumption has jumped from 700,000 tonnes in 2005 to an estimated 1.9 million tonnes this year. Consequently, a country that was once a leading shrimp exporter is now the top importer -something seafood traders are already well aware of. As the accompanying graph shows, China's transformation from large exporter to importer is the largest brake on the expansion of world shrimp exports.
-And where are "Official Statistics" in all this? "FAO data do not reveal any major impact of diseases in Chinese production from 2009 to 2013; on the contrary, China is reported by FAO to have increased production from 1.3 to 1.7 million tonnes in this period, growing further to 1.9 million tonnes by 2015." This large gap between actual and official production that made China the world shrimp market's most important importer.
Interestingly, China's large shrimp trade deficit compromised the accuracy of a neighboring country's official shrimp statistics: According to the FAO, Vietnam's shrimp production for the years 2014 and 2015 and 601,000 and 552,000 tonnes respectively. -But panelists at late January's GSMC conference presented revised Vietnam shrimp production estimates of 270,000 tonnes in 2014 and 210,000 for 2015.
At 415,000 tonnes for 2017 and 470,000 tonnes for 2018, Vietnam appears to have 'recovered' -but even so, output remains below the 478,000-tonnes achieved in 2010. Constrained by recurring whiteleg shrimp disease outbreaks, export bans on account of high antibiotic levels and pond expansion financing problems, Vietnam's stunted output recovery depends heavily on less efficient monodon tiger shrimp.
Furthermore, several executives attending the GSMC conference questioned Vietnam's 'production recovery' figures: Vietnam imports 274,000+ tonnes of Ecuadorian, Indian, Indonesian and Malaysian annually: They use Vietnam as an export base before being 're-exported' to China. Many in the industry claim that at least a portion of these re-exported imports found their way into official Vietnamese shrimp output statistics. Hence, Vietnam may be growing and exporting less shrimp than what conservative GOAL estimates suggest.
Neighboring Indonesia has a similar 'output recovery' story: Mirroring what happened in Vietnam, Indonesian shrimp production crashed from 399,000 tonnes in 2011 to 230,000 tonnes in 2016. With the introduction of hardier breedstock, output recovered to 305,000 tonnes in 2017 and is expected to total 335,000 tonnes this year -still 16% below peak levels achieved seven years ago.
Going forward, GSMC panelists expect Indonesian shrimp output to expand at an incremental pace far slower than the booming increases taken for before 2011. As is the case with China and Vietnam, many industry stakeholders second guess the accuracy of official Indonesian output figures.
Southeast Asia's stagnant output includes a nation that was once the world's leading shrimp exporter. In 2017, Thailand (for a second consecutive year) failed to reach a projected 350,000 tonnes of output. Even so, at 305,000 tonnes, last year's output came in better than the 280,000 tonnes initially feared.
For 2018, CP senior vice-president for aquaculture Robins McIntosh predicts Thai shrimp output growth of 13%, to 345,000 tonnes. That could lift exports into the 250,000 to 300,000 tonne range for the first time since the turn of the decade when Thailand easily exported twice this quantity of shrimp.
Even so, it appears that Thai shrimp farming's idea of success is being redefined. At the GOAL conference, CP senior vice president Robins P. McIntosh states that Thailand's problems with EMS and EHP are essentially over. He said, "Disease was the big issue for two, three, four years, but I don't see disease as an issue for this year or next year or even two years out so there's nothing really on the horizon right now."
Statistically speaking, McIntosh is correct to say "Disease is a kind of a non-story today in Thailand": the EMS mortality rare for shrimp, for example, has fallen from 40% in 2015 to 0.1% today. He explained that "[shrimp] genetics getting more and more tolerant to the disease - in fact, they're almost completely tolerant now." While this is all true, Thailand achieved stability by producing less than half the shrimp and exports it did less than ten years ago.
According to McIntosh, production has been consolidated into fewer, larger sized ponds, processing capacity was reduced to match lower output levels and farm management now emphasizes "sustainability". With 10,000ha of ponds (and 20,000ha of supporting reservoirs) Thailand produces 40tonnes/ha of shrimp -and McIntosh is optimistic this can be increased to 60tonnes/ha before 2021.
That proposed 50% increase in stocking density could boost Thai shrimp output to 500,000 tonnes. Even so, that still would be more than 100,000 tonnes below peak output levels achieved less than ten years ago.
With Chinese and Southeast Asian shrimp output essentially treading water, India and Ecuador are single-handedly boosting world shrimp production and exports. Nobody knows how for how much longer these two nations can sustain rapid output expansion.
From 101,000 tonnes in 2010, India quintupled shrimp output to a GSMC panel estimated 566,000 tonnes in 2017 -and another 20% increase to nearly 700,000 tonnes is expected this year. Shrimp exports (including wild catch) jumped from under 200,000 tonnes in 2010 to around 540,000 tonnes in 2017 and an estimated 600,000 tonnes this year.
Similarly, Ecuador jacked up farmed shrimp production from 150,000 tonnes in 2007 to just under 500,000 tonnes last year, while exporting close to 95% of it. From 91,000 tonnes in 2005, Ecuadorian shrimp exports totaled 360,000 tonnes by 2015 and GSMC panelists expect them to be 531,000 tonnes this year.
Both India and Ecuador ran into production and disease issues several years ago. By 2016, industry conferences had no shortage of experts predicting that both Indian and Ecuadorian output would be forced to rise more slowly in the future. At 2tonnes/ha, Ecuadorian stocking densities are only 5% of levels taken for granted in China and Thailand.
Even so, with Ecuador committed to raising shrimp without antibiotics as part of its marketing reputation, EMS threatened to curtail output growth after 2015. A similar story happened in India, with both EMS and WSSV. Indian growers subsequently jacked up their antibiotic use, resulting in widely publicized rejections of its export shipments to America and a near-banning of them by the EU.
How did India and Ecuador squeeze out another three years of rapid growth? CP's McIntosh notes that high post-2013 shrimp prices have brought a lot of new ponds in frontier regions into production, particularly in India. For example, from 2012 through 2017, the quantity of Indian pond acreage under shrimp cultivation was increased by nearly 500%, much of it in states or regions that had never grown shrimp before.
In Ecuador, Sandro Coglitore, president of leading producer Omarsa, reports that by improving farm management and importing hardier breedstock, his firm successfully boosted both output and stocking densities. Thus far, he and other Ecuadorian growers have not encountered the disease issues many thought would hold back post-2015 output growth.
The problem is if shrimp prices stayed permanently high, untapped frontier pond acreage runs out -therefore Ecuadorian and Indian stocking densities cannot remain low forever. McIntosh believes that Indian output could top out somewhere below a million tonnes, then do a Thailand-style 'crash back' to the current level of 600,000 tonnes.
Are India and Ecuador capable of multiplying their shrimp stocking densities in a sustainable manner? Can Thailand pre-EMS output levels or grow beyond 600,000 tonnes by the early 2020s? No major shrimp producer is more technically advanced or better qualified to do this than Thailand -but that was true even when EMS first broke out eight years ago.
The unexpectedly strong 4.8% annual growth in output since 2015 is partly due to unexpected success in raising Indian and Ecuadorian output. It also reflects the stabilization (but not an actual recovery) in Chinese and Southeast Asian output.
Can the world shrimp output continue expanding at the pace it has done so since 2015 on the backs of two new but rapidly maturing producers? Perhaps a new round of high shrimp will open up frontier areas beyond those found in India and Ecuador. Perhaps Thailand will find a way to sustainably push stocking densities far above pre-EMS levels. For now, the only constant is uncertainty.
