They have helped Vietnam join the ranks of Asian exporters that have flooded the world with the cheap crustacean, contributing to a doubling of the global shrimp trade over the past decade. But the explosion in consumption has brought problems of overfishing, disease, pollution and forced labor that the industry has been trying to tackle for years.
One response has been to move farming from mangrove forests to artificial pools, which allow water quality and climate to be controlled. Last week Viet Uc, Vietnam’s biggest hatchery, opened a $17 million processing plant that turned it into the country’s only fully integrated shrimp business, handling every step from growing larva to exporting grown shrimp.
The new factory, according to the company, is 70% automated and covers an area equal to 14 soccer fields in Bac Lieu, a southern Mekong Delta province known for wind turbines and ethnic diversity.
One change supporting the shrimp industry’s transition to artificial ponds is the adoption of technology like recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS), which continuously filter and reuse water. Environmentalists say this method can be sustainable, allowing high production volumes with less wastewater and a lower threat of ecosystem destruction. But diners, who have seen shrimp evolve from a luxury to a staple of all-you-can-eat buffets, may have to accept higher prices, as analysts say some of the technology comes with hefty upfront investments.
In a similar vein, Viet Uc says it uses “flow-through” systems that periodically take water in and out of the ponds. It also says its shrimp are bred using molecular and “quantitative genetic technology” to yield “better adaptation [and] stronger resistance to diseases.”
“Sustainable here [means] for the environment, with a farming process with little water change, but also sustainable for consumers, with absolutely no use of antibiotics or chemicals,” the company said in a statement.
Vietnam is the world’s top exporter of frozen shrimp after India and Ecuador but only recently has started to adopt RAS, which should be more efficient and involve less groundwater pumping than traditional farms, according to Andrew Wyatt, Mekong deputy head at environmental group IUCN.
“In intensive shrimp farms, you’re in the open environment,” he said in an interview. “You raise the shrimp crop and then you discharge the effluent-laden water with all the shrimp waste.”
Traditional shrimpers, he added, use antibiotics against “boom-bust” disease cycles triggered when they add river or canal water, potentially bringing in disease, to avoid altered water chemistry due to evaporation.
“The salinity goes up, the ammonium levels go up” as water levels fall, Wyatt said. “The chemical balance in the pond goes out of kilter. That’s what kills the shrimp.”
The endless appetite for shrimp comes from its versatility, as made famous by the “Forrest Gump” character Bubba, a Vietnam War soldier who rattles off 21 shrimp recipes. Such popularity pushed global exports to a value of $22 billion by 2021, roughly twice the size of a decade earlier, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC). Thailand was the top shipper until 2012, when it was overtaken by India, and later also by Vietnam, Indonesia and China, OEC data shows.
Wild prawns are rarer in the industry, which has not fully recovered from overfishing and reports of forced labor. In the mid-2010s, investigations by Guardian and AP journalists exposed slavery in Southeast Asian fishing, including for crustaceans.
Tech is enabling a path to “commercially vibrant land-based shrimp farming” but it is still early days, said Steve Hedlund, communications manager at Global Seafood Alliance, a trade body.
“RAS shrimp is still boutique,” he told Nikkei Asia. “Costs are relatively high, and production globally is relatively low. Plus, RAS shrimp must be sold at a premium to high-end markets. It cannot compete as a commodity.”
RAS farming is found in places from the Philippines to Taiwan and ranges from lower-cost, manually operated tanks to sophisticated large-scale systems, Wyatt said.
Vietnam has more than 100,000 shrimp farms by some estimates, often small family businesses, contributing to frozen exports worth $2.3 billion in 2021, the OEC said. Over at Viet Uc, the new plant marks the last step for the company to cover the sector’s whole value chain.
Hedlund said that technology like water circulation, which is used to cultivate all manner of seafood, brings predictability to the business, but he added a caveat: “There is no method of farming animals, aquatic or terrestrial, that is without risk.”
Source: Nikkei Asia
Source: https://e.nhipcaudautu.vn/tech/vietnam-shrimp-sector-adopts-tech-in-quest-for-clean-supply-chain-3352844/