Asia’s farmed shrimp industry has lost about U.S. $20 billion over the last decade as a result of diseases. Shutterstock image.

Marketplace to industry, governments: Solve shrimp diseases

UNITED STATES
Friday, September 18, 2020, 16:00 (GMT + 9)

The following is an excerpt from an article published in Global Aquaculture Advocate

The international seafood marketplace issued a heartfelt plea to the shrimp supply chain last month. Its message: Shrimp disease management control is crucial and without a coordinated plan, new diseases will continue to wreak havoc on the supply chain as they have done for the past couple of decades.

The message was issued in a letter to aquaculture directors in the governments of China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia by the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP); it was signed by 19 members of the Asia Farmed Shrimp Supply Chain Round Table, among them Waitrose & Partners, Sainsbury’s, Fishin’ Company, UK Seafood Industry Alliance, Tesco and SeaFresh Group.

The companies expressed a collective concern about new diseases like DIV1 and HPTV (hepatopancreatic translucence virus) and about the potential movement of diseased post-larvae from hatcheries to grow-out ponds, resulting in widespread transmission of these and other diseases.

Sustainable Fisheries Partnership is supporting four aquaculture improvement projects in Asia regarding coordinated disease management approaches. (Photo by Pau Badia, courtesy of SFP)

Anton Immink, aquaculture director at SFP, said the roundtable is currently supporting four aquaculture improvement projects in Asia regarding coordinated disease management approaches – three in Thailand and one in Indonesia. Each project costs between $100,000 and $150,000 per year and engages the majority of producers in a province and the respective governance agents. The overarching goal is to initiate additional projects and to proactively engage the governments in those countries to improve the way they manage disease risks.

“One of the challenges we constantly face is that governments and industries don’t have any emergency response plans in place for an outbreak of disease on shrimp farms,” he said. “While they’ve signed up to the international guidelines issued by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), they’re not strong when it comes to following or enforcing the guidance because of economic pressures of wanting to grow. So we’re calling on them for a general strengthening of good practice and we want to work with them to develop a plan on who will take what action if an outbreak occurs.”

Immink contended that disease remains the biggest issue for the shrimp industry, and yet every year nothing is done to improve disease management control.(continued...)

Author: Lauren Kramer / Global Aquaculture Advocate | Read the rest of the story by clicking the link here

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