The efforts of Marine Product Export Development Authority to revive the production of black tiger shrimps have started receiving encouraging response from farmers. This is evident from the mass sale of seeds from its multi-species aquaculture complex at Vallarpadam in the past 100 days.

Mpeda started supplying black tiger shrimp seeds in February with the objective of supplying disease-free variety to farmers. The inaugural sale was done by Mpeda Chairman KS Srinivas by handing over one lakh seeds to former Kerala Director General of Police Hormis Tharakan, a progressive shrimp farmer.

Srinivas noted that the black tiger prawn supplied has been showing “excellent” performance in various parts of the State. “We knew that increased production of the black tiger variety can boost India’s shrimp exports in the long run. We are seeing the early signs of it happening,” he added. “Recently, I visited some of the aquaculture farms to see how the seeds from our facility are faring. They are doing very well. The farmers’ response was encouraging.”

Tharakan said the seeds showed very good performance during the three months of culture period. “They gained an average weight of 38 grams, thanks to the quality. I got 260 kg of shrimp in the 90 days from an area of 50 cents by stocking 10,000 seeds. Currently, we are rearing another 90,000 seeds. This is in happy contrast to my facing a continuous crop loss for the last three years,” he said.

The ₹7.26-crore MAC features a hatchery with an annual production capacity of 20 million black tiger shrimp seeds, besides nurseries for four varieties of fin fishes.

Good growth

CV Mathew, another farmer who has been into shrimp cultivation for 16 years in his native Kumbalangi suburb, said black tiger seeds from MAC attained 25-gram size in the first 50 days.

“In 86 days, the animals reached an average size of 40 grams. I have never experienced such a growth rate of my crop,” he said.

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