In October, Indonesia finished its second shrimp crop of the year. It was reportedly a good crop as weather conditions were favorable, and farmers were not confronted with as many disease-related issues as in the first crop of 2018.
The farmers have now stocked for a third crop but, with the monsoon season having arrived in November, farmers are facing more trouble managing the farms properly. ShrimpTails therefore expects that farmers will try to harvest early, before the monsoon season peaks in January and February. This would entail that small sizes of shrimp will be harvested in early January and farmers will try to wrap up as soon as they can.
In terms of export performance, statistics show that exports in the third quarter, when not much shrimp was harvested, slowed down significantly and year-on-year growth rates almost diminished. We expect, however, that the statistics of the last quarter of 2018 will show stronger year-on-year growth rates as the second crop harvests will be included in these statistics.
With this in mind, we expect that in terms of shrimp output, Indonesia, by the end of 2018, will conclude a slightly stronger year than in 2017.
