Shrimp seed prices fall 50% this fiscal

Andhra Pradesh is a big producer as well as consumer of shrimp seeds and nearly 200 out of the country's 300-odd shrimp seed hatcheries are located in the state.

"In the last fiscal, we sold shrimp seeds at Re 0.40-0.50 per seed, but this fiscal we have got only Re 0.20-0.25 per seed. This is mainly due to the drop in seed consumption in the state," M Sudarsan Swamy, president of All India Shrimp Hatcheries Association and managing director of Santir Aquatic Private Limited, told Business Standard.

"During the last fiscal, all the hatcheries in the state put together produced about nine billion shrimp seeds, but this year, the production has dropped to between five to six billion seeds," Swamy said.

"Interestingly, the cultivated area under aquaculture in the state has not decreased during the current year even though the shrimp seed consumption has dropped by 30-35 per cent. This is mainly due to the adoption of a new technique from last season by shrimp producers ," he added.

Explaining the new technique, Swamy said: "The usual practice by farmers to cultivate tiger prawns was to put nearly a lakh of shrimp seeds in each acre of tank and harvest them after each shrimp grew to about 25 gm. But now, they harvest only after each shrimp grows to about 35 gm. Therefore, by putting only 60,000 to 65,000 shrimp seeds for each acre of tank, the farmers still get the same quantity of tiger shrimp. By implementing this technique, the farmers aren't just saving on production costs but due to large size shrimps they are also getting a good price for their produce."

While shrimp seed prices have come down hatcheries have still managed to maintain or marginally improve their margins, thanks to a reduction in input costs. "An important factor that dictates the production cost for a shrimp hatchery is the brooder (male and female sea prawns) price. During the last fiscal, shrimp hatchery owners paid Rs 30,000-40,000 for each brooder, but this year, each brooder costs only Rs 10,000," Swamy said.

"Also, this year, the hatchery owners are paying just Rs 20,000 per gravid, whereas they paid nearly Rs 60,000 for each piece, last season," he added. A gravid is a mother tiger prawn and each gravid produces nearly five lakh shrimp seeds.