Shrimp aquaculture in China has entered a difficult period, with environmental issues facilitating drops in production and larval quality also slipping, producers in the country shared with the Global Aquaculture Alliance as part of the organization’s GOAL 2017 conference, taking place this week in Dublin, Ireland from 3 to 6 October.
Chen Dan, chairman of Guangdong Evergreen Conglomerate Co., noted that shrimp production has declined in China by 20 percent to 900,000 tons, mainly “due to environmental problems and germplasm degradation.”
Moreover, export volumes have slipped as well in 2017, the result of domestic prices being higher than international markets, Dan said.
“Greater investment is needed in environmental controls such as designated farming zones and standardized farm management” to help jumpstart the sector in China going forward, Dan argued. He also stressed the need for China’s hatcheries “to tighten operational standards to improve larval quality” to help increase larval growout, which currently has a success rate of 50 percent.
The current challenging state of shrimp aquaculture in China moved Jia Hao Ma, chairman for Guangzhou Liyang Bio Tech Company, to declare “the era of easy shrimp farming is gone forever.”
Ma similarly noted the environmental deterioration gripping the Chinese aquaculture sector for shrimp, remarking on the necessity for water quality remediation systems and products.
As far as broodstocks and broodstock genetics, Ma said “future breeding programs should be oriented to select for greater resistance to environmental stress.”
