'Vannamei' shrimp key to marine product exports growth: MPEDA

Introduction of exotic 'Vannamei' shrimp into India's coastal aquaculture system has significantly contributed to maintaining the momentum in the country's marine product exports, according to MPEDA.
"Indian marine product exports are doing quite well over the last few years. Major factor that contributed to the increase in exports was the introduction of exotic Vannamei shrimp variety into our coastal aquaculture systems," Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA) Chairman Dr A Jayathilak told PTI.
"As the shrimp production saw a surge, our exports also grew accordingly, given frozen shrimp is the major item of export from the country," he said.
Indian marine products are principally supported by frozen shrimp, which is mainly sourced from the coastal aquaculture farms. India farms mainly two varieties of shrimp - 'Pacific White Leg Shrimp' (Litopenaeus vannamei) and 'Indian Black Tiger Shrimp' (Penaeus monodon).

Black Tiger Shrimp is mostly farmed in the traditional ponds of West Bengal, Odisha and Kerala, whereas the exotic vannamei variety is farmed mainly in states like Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Odisha, he said.
India has produced 4.09 lakh tons of vannamei shrimp during 2015-16. The broodstock of vannamei variety is imported from abroad right now. The import quarantine facility for vannamei broodstock is located at Chennai and is operated by the MPEDA's subsidiary organisation, Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Aquaculture (RGCA).

MPEDA has also developed high health shrimp seeds for farmers so that crop failures can be minimised.

"It has also developed technology for seed production and farming of variety of species such as Tilapia, Seabass and Mangrove crab. Many farmers in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Odisha have taken up the farming of those varieties. MPEDA is hopeful that those varieties also will substantially contribute to the country's export production in the near future," he said.
"However, we have utilised just 11 per cent of our potential area suitable for coastal aquaculture. It is important that the governing bodies shall identify and notify specific aquaculture zones, which will give a fillip to the long standing demand of farmers to augment production with least social conflicts," he said.

Indian shrimp especially enjoys very good demand in all major overseas markets. Despite prevailing anti-dumping duty on frozen shrimp, India remains the largest supplier of the item to the US market, he said.
Jayathilak said the seafood export registered an
all-time record in 2014-15 by exporting 1.05 million tons valued USD 5.51 billion (Rs 33,442 crores). This was mostly due to reduced shrimp supply from other major shrimp producing nations such as China, Vietnam and Thailand, which were affected by a disease known as 'Early Mortality Syndrome'.
However, in 2015-16, the situation in these countries improved. Accordingly, Indian seafood exports slipped both in figures and quantity during 2015-16 and earnings were USD 4.69 billion, he said.

He said the revival of the aquaculture production (especially shrimp) in Thailand and Vietnam has resulted in a better supply situation in the international market. This has eased the price situation of shrimp the world over.
"Thus, our average unit value realisation of frozen shrimp has come down to USD 8.28 per kg in 2015-16 as against USD 10.38 in 2014-15. The depreciation of euro, weaker economic condition in China, devaluation of yen, and lesser sea catch etc contributed to the decline in exports," he said.
However, he said the export scenario in 2016-17 is very encouraging.
"We have seen an increase of almost 13 per cent in the export value up to November, 2016 compared to last year same period. In dollar terms, the increase is nearly 9 per cent. However,the volume growth is not very significant indicating a higher unit value realisation," he said.

USA is the largest market for Indian seafood followed by South East Asian countries and European Union with frozen shrimp being the principal item that contributes about 66 per cent of the total revenue.
To a question if there has been a fish stock depletion, he said, as per the fish landing statistics released by the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI), the sea catches are coming down every year.
In 2015, the landing of various species were 34,04,771 tons against 35,92,853 tons in 2014. The sea-caught shrimp landing has declined by 10.5 per cent in 2015 (3,48,296 tons) compared to 2014 (3,89,007 tons).

Most of the seafood processing units in the western states depend on sea catch for their export obligations. The situation is a big concern to trade as well as all country's food security. Various studies show that the climatic changes have an impact on the fish stock, he said.
"However, those efforts are localised or scattered. We
shall emulate the processing sector of countries like Vietnam or Thailand, where value addition is the core activity. It is the need of the hour that the processing sector shall invest their resources and effort on high end value addition as the raw material resources are getting limited," Jayathilak said.

He said it will help to utilise available raw material better and bring in better margins. The sector may also import seafood raw material for job work as well as value addition.
On the critical aspects of fish export and the potential target countries, the senior IAS officer said the quality requirements of most of importing countries are very stringent, especially on parameters such as antibiotic residues, pesticides, heavy metals and other microbes.
"Similarly, there are regulations in place on conservation measures, tariff issues like anti-dumping duty on shrimps, SPS measures - these are all critical for Indian seafood export sector," he said.

"MPEDA plays pivotal role in addressing and tackling such issues by initiating corrective actions and liaison with import authorities as well in resolving such issues so that smooth trade is facilitated," Jayathilak said.
"Currently, marine products are exported to 108 countries across the globe. However, we would like to focus our efforts more on certain countries in Latin America, besides Egypt, Saudi Arabia and South Korea for promotion of Indian seafood," he said.
There is, of late, also a slow yet progressing change in capacity utilisation and value addition of Indian seafood processing sector. Many of the processors are eager to get international certifications which will arm them to win the contracts from leading retail chains of Europe, USA as well as Japan. Some of them are quite successful in getting business tie ups.

"Despite these, India still remains a raw material supplier to other nations, especially those in South East Asia such as Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia besides China. Those countries use Indian raw material to add value and export as retail branded products," he said.
"The situation needs to change so that the entire raw material produced by our country shall be added value here itself. MPEDA is working hard to encourage seafood exporters to focus more in value addition, especially high end value addition," Jayathilak said.
"Besides assistance schemes, we also have plans to improve the skills of seafood workers so that the exporters can confidently take up the tasks of supplying value added products as demanded by the major retailers abroad," he said.