Have had several requests about not being able to access report posted for downloading on public domain by Planet Tracker.
Can understand difficult to make sense of Prawnmaster review posted. Not sure why report moved.
Category: Shrimp big business interests
Lack of transparency threatens $63bn of farmed shrimp investments – Planet Tracker suggested findings.
Some interesting key takeaways but overall flawed. Exaggerated (fake, miss targeted, sensational, etc) reporting.
Counter arguments could be that this was written out of an office in London. Just imagine the footprint in England. Probably by people who have the luxury of living and benefiting from exploitation already. Where are all the forests that used to cover the UK? Cut down to make houses and ships to rule the rest of the world – as fuel.
Also one must surely put in the society job creation aspect to counter balance – millions of people globally raised out of poverty with shrimp farming.
Simple if you have a problem with shrimp aquaculture you vote with your wallet – just don’t buy. Or buy certified or from a trusted brand. Local supermarket in developed country should be good enough 🙂
Concern on inflation ($63bn is way silly number) with this one:
Planet Tracker has identified 27 publicly listed companies involved in farmed shrimp
with a combined market capitalisation of $102 billion, of which $63 billion is held by
external investors. Their farmed shrimp segment gross profit and net profit margins
are unable to be assessed due to very low transparency on shrimp-related revenues
and costs.
Some listed companies are itsy bitsy players in shrimp farming – compared to their portfolios. This report bundles all businesses together.
Some companies shown are not even in farmed shrimp production. Take High Liner – where are their owned operations? Some companies are Japanese shrimp fishing companies not deeply involved in the farmed shrimp sector. Many traders and secondary processors. So no farmed shrimp information relative to any LCA’s.
Why not better show the volume of shrimp these 27 companies say they produce and what portion this is of their overall business. Guaranteed added up they are still minority players in industry.
Profits assessed on related revenues and costs is not of importance if one is looking at a resource monitoring exercise – which this report supposedly is. But including it is because trying to hook the big fish………this is shrimp.
And this one….
Historical and future mangrove deforestation is a material risk for the farmed shrimp
industry – incorporating land use change into shrimp life cycle assessments places
shrimp ahead of beef for GHG emissions on a per kilogram of production basis.
Same story for past decades. It may be an issue for specific players out of SE Asia but does not stand up for many companies in the farmed shrimp industry.
Would be interesting to see what Planet Tracker has done reporting shrimp wise in the Western Hemisphere?
CP Foods finds opportunity in farmed shrimp disease crisis…
Crisis? What crisis? Link to Supertramp.
…..am pretty sure that CP Foods operation will find opportunity and be succesful – they have a world class shrimp operational team working on their RAS.
Latest technology would no doubt mean AI, robotics, edge computing, sensors, IoT, etc.
Hopefully the opportunity is for growth for all shrimp farmers in the industry.
The seafood media should growup and stop talking up a non existent disease crises in shrimp aquaculture.
Bigger consortiums should look to a better message to promote their brands. An all inclusive supportive message. Starting with ratcheting down disease issues as a driver to opportunities.
Why Thai shrimp production dropped and came to stabilise will be commented on tomorrow on this blog and how it manifested as a disease.
This article however is more about brand marketing and raising profiles and funds no doubt…
Here it is in b&w……The Economist case for why the shrimp industry works…..
Shrimp industry does not need consolidation or to be run like the salmon industry.
It will be counter productive to consolidate. This is the message of what companies are for.
Innovation, widely dpread ownership and diverse firms that adapt fast to society’s needs is the better route.
Collective capitalism is already the existing shrimp farming model if one takes a helicopter view.
Also as a young industry, highly profitable and under continual scrutiny, shrimp aquaculture in its relatively short 40 years has not had the luxury to externalize its wastes….
Sale of Pescanova’s Nicaragua ops said to be in the works; company denies it…
Interestingly makes business sense for New PescaNova to remain only in core wild fishing operations and divest out of shrimp aquaculture.
Not sure here who is confirming or who is denying what…but does sound like a leak…or creative journalism?
Pescanova have the brand market covered for most all seafood in Spain anyway and looking to grow in USA again…what with new CEO appointment.
So while getting into shrimp aquaculture was a useful undertaking back in the day and was facilitated by EU funds, the nature of the global vannamei supply market being commodity driven, the marketing and distribution arms may be supporting a settled complacency in production….with no competive pressure at operational level.
Divesting locally to a dedicated operator that has to compete against others globally may be a better strategy for New Pescanova.
https://www.undercurrentnews.com/2019/06/27/nueva-pescanova-plans-to-sell-nicaragua-shrimp-ops/
Prawn-venture-heralds-aquaculture-step-up
150,000MT/year.
Black Tiger.
Disease free founder stock.
Once fully operational will put Australia in the top 10 producer countries.
Good on ya, mate…prawns on the barbie!
Shrimp bio-security. Regulators – don’t flush RAS shrimp down the toilet…chose system over program.
This reminds me my dealings from 1994 when processing, packing and exporting branded shrimp out of Ecuador for Marine Harvest International and where we test ran the NASA human food program of the proposed USFDA HACCP seafood system at commercial international trade level and then rolled it out countrywide prior to becoming US Law 1997. HACCP in food went global from space technology and we just celebrated its 20th anniversary.
A shrimp farmer likes to hear about bio-security programs. It is a way to keep shrimp healthy, by exclusion and limitation as expounded upon by Robins McIntosh of CP at WAS in March 2019.
Yes, we all want this to work to stop the need to medicate in the industry and to move against possible anti microbial resistance (AMR) but when asked about bio-security a non shrimp farmer, and that is the majority of people on this planet, will say containment – so that there are no escapees or anything coming out of the system that could affect their back yard….yes NIMBY’s are a major barrier to RAS.
If I knew a system was RAS bio-secure in the sense of being regulated for containment then I do not see the need why one would need to regulate on a program for exclusion and limitation as is the current case.
I would not care whether you used origin SPF, SPR, APE or run with chimpanzees. I would not worry if ultrafiltration, PCR or flushing shrimp toilets were used – as long as they did not flush out.
Regulators should look at the systems rather than the programs when legislating food for human consumption. In this case regarding biosecurity across biodiversity. Human, food, shrimp… probably in that order.
In aquaculture they turn to the likes of the OIE and large players, like CP, to get their guidance and then vested interests could be kicking in.
Then again if I had spent somewhere upwards of $200m on a shrimp genetic program, as CP has supposedly done, I too would be looking at how to get some mileage by raising the bar, lobbying, putting in barriers to entry, CSR, ethics, the lot.
Media access and PR has its role in a modern business. Anyway who else but shrimp farmers like listening to shrimp farmers.
My recommendation though is to promote RAS to be bio-secure in containment and not to think bio-security is just about exclusion or limitation which, lets face it, is more the responsible, face the shareholder, shrimp husbandry management part.
Regulate the system as if a permanent quarantine and containment site while they grow. Don’t try to regulate on shrimp genetics, shrimp origin, shrimp diseases, shrimp feeds or shrimp culture methods used as you would stifle growth and innovation. If RAS bio-secure containment sites then these are commercial considerations and each to his own. Do regulate on antibiotics, allowed additives and food safety post aquaculture.
Oh and don’t allow movement or sales of live shrimp out of bio-secure RAS systems….in yes, and from anywhere! but out alive no!
