Amid falling domestic demand China’s shrimp production volume is nearly stagnant, according to Luca Micciche, aquaculture technical director and business development manager at Cary, North Carolina, U.S.A.-based Verdesian Life Sciences.
Leading a discussion at the 2024 Global Shrimp Forum – held in Utrecht, Netherlands, in early September – Micciche said that over the last four or five years, the growth of China’s shrimp output has fallen from over 5 percent annually to just 1 percent.
Chinese shrimp farmers have faced increasing production costs and falling market prices, according to Micciche, and while seasonal price peaks around the Chinese New Year have continued to provide some funds, farmers have struggled in the mid-year months of June and July, as well as November and December.
“Sometimes, [farmers] are just breaking even, and some farmers in the southern provinces, for example, are now not stocking during certain times. They are waiting to restock to get better winter prices,” Micciche said.
Acknowledging that China is still the world’s leading aquaculture producer with around 54 million metric tons (MT) of output annually, Micciche pointed out that shrimp and prawns currently account for just 5 percent of this volume – at between 2.5 million MT and 2.7 million MT.
Shrimp cultivation began in China around 1980, and its growth received a boost after the commercial introduction of Pacific white shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) in 1996. Shortly thereafter, the government strongly promoted the production of this species from 1998 on, with the sector seeing consistent growth until its current rough patch.
“From 1998, vannamei production moved from 100,000 MT to almost 800,000 MT in 2003. After that, the growth rate averaged around 5.2 percent from 2004 to 2020, although this fluctuated between 2011 and 2014 due to early mortality syndrome. But lately, during the last four years, there’s been a slowdown with just a 1 percent increase in growth, essentially due to Covid and economic issues," Micciche said.
Today, vannamei accounts for 93 percent of China’s shrimp production, followed by black tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon) at 5 percent and kuruma shrimp (Marsupenaeus japonicus) at 2 percent. Vanammei and kuruma volumes are increasing at around 1 percent annually, and monodon by 2 percent.
In terms of production regions, Guangdong Province is leading the way with almost 1 million MT of output forecast for this year, followed by Guangxi, Shandong, and Jiangsu. Four different farming systems account for most of this output: traditional large earthen ponds; smaller greenhouse covered ponds; lined ponds; and high-density shrimp factories using flow-through technologies.
Micciche said he believes the greenhouse ponds are the most sustainable of the bunch and present an exciting way forward for the struggling sector.
First established in Jiangsu, these are usually 320- to 360-square-meter covered earthen ponds that have lined banks to protect them from erosion. They tend to feature a central bridge to allow farm employees to keep an eye on the shrimp and check the water and feeding protocols.
Aquaculturist and parasitologist Fuci Guo also spoke at the forum, and said that each greenhouse is capable of producing 500 kilograms per crop, typically achieving two crops per year.
Micciche added that these farms are growing at the fastest rate, mainly because they are the easiest system to scale up.
“It’s a system that we consider excellent because it's very easy to isolate and avoid disease; the water exchange is very low – just 5 percent to 10 percent per day maximum during the hot season,” he said. “There’s also the exclusion of pathogens without the use of antibiotics or chemicals, just using bacteria and prebiotics.”
Additionally, despite the general downtrend of domestic shrimp prices, modern production techniques such as greenhouses are growing because of “healthy demand” in China’s coastal areas and “very healthy demand” in the country’s tourist areas, Micciche said.
“It’s pushing Chinese farmers to increase their efficiency and the quality of their production,” he said.
Charoen Pokphand Foods (CPF) Executive Vice President Robins McIntosh said that greenhouses represent the future of shrimp farming in China, especially as increased disease and biosecurity challenges mount.
“They are becoming the workhorse for Chinese [shrimp] culture,” he said.
At the end of 2023, China had an estimated 400,000 working greenhouse ponds and that a further 100,000 would be added this year, McIntosh told the conference.
“I think there are probably 450,000 of these operating now and operating at different levels. I also think last year they would have given a higher yield, but this year, it has probably been knocked down a bit, just because of the difficulties in the market,” he said.
