The Global Seafood Market Conference (GSMC), organized by the National Fisheries Institute (NFI), was recently held in Orlando, Florida, USA.
In his keynote report, Robins McIntosh, vice president of Thailand’s Ortho Bee, noted that global production of farmed shrimp grew by 4.5% to 5.15 million tonnes in 2023, with prices below cost in many regions, and is expected to fall by 1% to 5.1 million tonnes in 2024.
In his latest forecast, McIntosh changed his tune on Ecuador, where he sees continued momentum in farming, with production expected to be around 1.45 million tonnes in 2024, unchanged from 2023 (Ecuador’s production grew 12% in 2023, and McIntosh had predicted a 200,000-tonne decline in 2024).
Separately, McIntosh said China’s production, which grew 20% to 1.15 million tonnes last year, could fall to 1.1 million in 2024. “Chinese aquaculture technology has risen, tiny indoor raceway systems and China has 400,000 similar units, each yielding 1 tonne and capable of raising two crops, retrofitted on traditional ponds.”
In 2023, China’s warm-water shrimp imports were close to 1 million tonnes.McIntosh said that while domestic live shrimp and imported frozen shrimp were in separate markets, late last year some Chinese farmers said their prices were affected by imported shrimp.
“Globally, there are always a few places where shrimp farmers are losing money. production in India will decline by 2.5 percent to 780,000 tonnes in 2024 and is likely to grow only if prices rise. The Indian farming industry, which stretches from West Bengal to Gujarat, has huge potential and is only being held back by the market, and this decline may only be temporary.”
In Ecuador, where shrimp farming remains highly resilient, Omarsa CEO Sandro Coglitore says that despite low prices last year, farmers have improved their technology, using more automatic feeders and oxygenators.
Coglitore predicted that Ecuador would reduce the number of seedlings in the first half of 2024, mainly concerned about the risk of climate change caused by El Niño, so production will decline in the first few months, and begin to grow in the second half of the year.
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