"The most astonishing thing -- I think we all agree -- is the amazing growth of Indian shrimp," another panelist told conference-goers during the National Fisheries Institute's Global Seafood Market Conference shrimp panel on Tuesday.
"I don’t think any of us expected India and Ecuador to go off like rocketships," Travis Larkin, president and owner of shrimp importer the Seafood Exchange, said.
Production in India increased about 25%, to about 800 million pounds, during the 2014-15 production cycle, data from the Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA) shows; while 2014 production in Ecuador increased about 27% year on year, to about 610m pounds, data from the Camara Nacional de Acuacultura shows.
India's increase, while slightly less drastic, is particularly remarkable considering how long its steep growth rate has lasted. The 2014-15 estimated level of production of 800m pounds is twice that of 2012-13, according to MPEDA.
Yet finally such runaway growth is expected to subside in the 2015-16 production cycle, with the growth rate being much lower "in the near future", according to a slide presented during the panel's discussion.
“There are a lot of farmers that had started farming the past few years. We won’t see that continue this year,” one of the panelists said.
This slowing growth trend is also expected to hit Indonesian exports, which grew from roughly 220,000 metric tons in 2013 to 340,000t in 2014, data from Charoen Pokphand Group shows.
Although the strong dollar and lower fuel costs could be beneficial to farmers, the expected continuation of dropping prices is likely to discourage new farming ventures from sprouting up, the panelist said.
Last year's product influx seems to have been relatively well-distributed over a variety of nations but -- in terms of percentage gain -- was strongest in Vietnam, where imports of the product rose 141%. Most of this, however, is likely going to China ultimately, one of the panelists said.
Exports to Europe showed the second highest increase, having grown 53%, while the US received a 19% gain in product.
India's growth is particularly notable when considering its duration. Its production has grown every year since 2008-09. Although the gains the following year were rather modest, every year since 2010-11 has seen growth of nearly 100m pounds or more.
The growth of vannamei production is the main reason for the increase. Vannamei production has nearly completely replaced that of black tigers at this point.
Although MPEDA announced efforts this year to is to bring back some black tiger farming, it is clear that the major volume species is now vannamei. It has grown to comprise about 900 million pounds, farm weight, of production in 2014-15, up from less than 50m pounds in 2010-11, when black tiger production topped 250m pounds. For the 2014-15 cycle, meanwhile, black tiger production dropped to about 100m pounds.
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