• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

Our Bureau

Kochi Dec. 28

THE contribution of aquaculture to the country's shrimp export basket is proving to be a most critical factor in recent years. While shrimp exports yielded Rs 4,235 crore during last year, as much as 89.57 per cent of it was contributed by aquaculture.

In volume, the country exported 1.23 lakh tonnes of shrimp in 2002-03, of which 65.72 per cent came from aquaculture sources.

Despite these high levels, coastal shrimp production has been erratic, since the sector is plagued with a number of problems lately, affecting its growth rate, a paper published by the Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA) has said.

Moreover, over dependence on cultured shrimp for export purposes may also prove detrimental to the long-term interest of the marine exports, Mr J. Bojan, Mr Vishnu Bhat and Mr P.N. Vinod of MPEDA said.

So it is considered essential to develop alternate production bases for augmenting as well as sustaining the country's export performance.

The immediate strategy has been to promote scampi farming as an alternative to the propogation of the universally cultured black tiger both in the East and West coast of India.

Consequently, both the area and production of scampi has surged in the recent past. The total area under scampi soared almost three fold from 12,022 hectares in 1999-2000 to 34,630 hectares in 2002-03.

Production was even faster as it grew from 7140 tonnes in 1999-2000 to 30,450 tonnes in 2002-03. The productivity per hectare has also grown from 594 kg. to 886 kg. during the same time period.

Scampi being an indigenous species to large parts of the country, is perceived as more hardy and less vulnerable to diseases and vagaries of the weather, than the conventional species used in aquaculture.

During last year, 30,450 tonnes of freshwater prawns, scampi, were produced from 34,630 hectares of cultured area in the country. The scope and potential for increased productivity remains quite high. As in the case of cultured shrimp, Andhra Pradesh remains the leader in the production of cultured scampi, accounting for 21,580 hectares, which is 62 per cent of the total area under freshwater prawn culture in the country. The state also accounted for 27,020 tonnes of production, which is 89 per cent of the country's production last year. The substantially higher productivity from the state also shows that there remains immense potential in freshwater prawn aquaculture.

West Bengal remains a distant second with a seven per cent share in production. All the other states together contributed just four per cent of the total scampi production of the country.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication

Stories in this Section
Big jump in area under scampi: Study

Copyright © 2003, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line