Gulf Oil Disaster Boosts Shrimp Prices, But Asian Farms Have Lost Up To 80% To Disease, Heat

[hatrack]

EO Le Van Quang of Minh Phu Seafood Company says there’s been a surge in demand by US shrimp importers since the oil spill disaster cratered Gulf of Mexico production. Prices offered for black tiger shrimp have reached $13 per kilo, an increase of 30 percent over 2009 levels and the highest price seen in ten years.

Hot weather and decreased production in competing countries are also pushing prices up. An epidemic has killed 80 percent of Indonesia’s farmed shrimp, and 20 percent in Thailand and Malaysia. Production is down in India and Bangladesh too.

Seafood companies say that they are missing fat profits because demand has outstripped supply. Lam Ngoc Khuan at Phuong Nam Seafood Processing Company (Soc Trang) says that foreign partners are eager to place orders, but the company dares not sign new contracts.

Khuan says his company is scouring Ca Mau and Bac Lieu province for more shrimp. It has only been able to buy 40 tonnes per day, though the factory can process and pack 120 tonnes per day. Other Mekong Delta companies such as Fimex Vietnam, Stapimex, Kim Anh, Thai Tan and Ut Xi tell the same story: there’s only enough shrimp for them to run at 20-30 percent of the capacity.

EDIT

http://english.vietnamnet.vn/biz/201006/As-world-prices-peak-Vietnam-runs-out-of-shrimp-to-sell-917424/

[phantom power]

1. Market forces!

[notesdev]

2. It will boost prices for a while...

but it wouldn't surprise me to see an aversion build to all seafood, on the chance that it might be from the Gulf.

[Nihil]

3. Not just the "Gulf risk" ...

> it wouldn't surprise me to see an aversion build to all seafood,
> on the chance that it might be from the Gulf.

... but, as more facts come into the public knowledge about the effect
of pollution on prawns, etc., more doubt about the (basically unknowable)
conditions of the Asian imports too.

[trof]

4. I've read that Asian farmed shrimp are raised in a toxic brew

of antibiotics, fungicides, algaecides, pesticides, fertilizers, etc.
If my shrimp ain't local Gulf 'wild' shrimp, I ain't eatin' 'em.

"Ecological impacts

Shrimp farms of all types, from extensive to super-intensive, can cause severe ecological problems wherever they are located. For extensive farms, huge areas of mangroves were cleared, reducing biodiversity. During the 1980s and 1990s, about 35% of the world's mangrove forests have vanished. Shrimp farming was a major cause of this, accounting for over a third of it according to one study.

Intensive farms, while reducing the direct impact on the mangroves, have other problems. Their nutrient-rich effluents (industrial shrimp feeds disintegrate quickly, as little as 30% are actually eaten by the shrimp with a corresponding economic loss to the farmer, the rest is wasted<3>) are typically discharged into the environment, seriously upsetting the ecological balance. These waste waters contain significant amounts of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and antibiotics that cause pollution of the environment. Furthermore, releasing antibiotics in such ways injects them into the food chain and increases the risks of bacteria becoming resistant against them."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrimp_farm