India's shrimp farmers pare stocks by 30% on price uncertainty

Glut in global production and uncertainty in world trade have compelled shrimp farmers in the country to cut stocks of the perishable item by more than 30 per cent.

“Uncertainty in global trade after protectionism measures by the Trump administration have created a trust deficit in the trade. The stocking of shrimp by farmers has plunged by more than 30 per cent and they are set to lose Rs 40-50 for every kg,” said Sanjay Mohanty, president, Odisha Shrimp Farmers' Association.

He said stocks for the second crop, which is set to start from July, will also see a similar drop.

However, we expect the price to increase after harvest of the second crop, he added. Trade sources said that 50 per cent of hatcheries are in the shutdown mode in the last one month.

“No new stocking is happening in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Farmers are too scared to stock with prevalence of white feces diseases. Only the fittest will survive in shrimp culture now,” said Durai Murugan Balasubramanian, secretary of the Shrimp Association of Tamil Nadu in a recent social media post.

Trade sources said that shrimp prices have fallen below the production cost in Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Odisha, West Bengal and Gujarat.

Farmers want the Marine Products Exports Development Authority (Mpeda) to publish the prices of Vannamei shrimp, the key contributor to the seafood exports basket, in newspapers.

They have sought the intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to arrest the price fall and announce minimum pricing scale for them.

Even as seafood exports had crossed $7 billion in the last fiscal, trade sources are expecting a fall in the quantity and value of exports this year.

According to the recently released data by Mpeda, India shipped  13,77,244 tonnes of seafood and earned $7.08 billion during the financial year 2017-18 (with frozen shrimp and frozen fish continuing to be the flagship export items) compared to figures of 11,34,948 tonnes and $5.77 billion, respectively, in the preceding fiscal, registering a growth of 21.35 per cent.