Future of the shrimp industry in Bangladesh

Published Aug 30, 2022

Tridge summary

The article provides an in-depth analysis of the history and current state of Bangladesh's shrimp farming industry, from its early days in the 1970s to the present. It highlights the challenges the industry faced, such as environmental degradation, resistance from affected communities, and export bans, and the efforts to establish environmental safeguards and improve quality control. The industry's growth and the negative impacts of cyclones and the global economic recession are discussed, as well as the shift towards shrimp farming in coastal regions due to climate change. The article also explores the potential for Bangladesh to increase its competitiveness in the global shrimp market by either promoting its black tiger shrimp as a national treasure or by introducing the commercial production of non-native Vannamei shrimp. The article concludes by mentioning the recent government approval of two pilot projects for Vannamei production and the increase in shrimp export earnings in the last half of FY 2021-2022.

Disclaimer:The above summary was generated by Tridge's proprietary AI model for informational purposes.

Original content

In the early 1970s, the beginning of commercial shrimp farming started in Bangladesh with 9 fish processing plants being set up in Chittagong and Khulna and that gave rise to the present export-oriented shrimp industry. Since then, commercial shrimp farming slowly started to gain popularity in the coastal regions, but it only dramatically escalated in the early 1980s, which earned it the term ‘Blue Revolution’. The journey of the shrimp sector of Bangladesh can be further classified into four broader segments, they are: In the early days, shrimp aquaculture was governed by a complex system of political patronage consisting of powerful local officials, who were lured into the sector by the prospect of short-term profits. They would frequently extrude marginal fish farmers from their land, convert regions of the Sundarbans mangrove forest into shrimp farms and confiscate government-owned lands. These frequent exploitation of power and malpractices in shrimp production, which further ...

Source: Light Castle BD