Veteran Indian shrimp farmer Manoj Sharma has urged his fellow countrymen to desist from panic harvesting as vannamei shrimp prices dip once again due to a claimed supply glut from Ecuador.
Addressing the industry from home on July 3, Sharma -- who is based in Gujarat, rather than India's shrimp farming heartlands of Andhra Pradesh -- said the previous few days had seen price decreasing across the global marketplace, creating "a very panicked situation in the industry, especially among the farmers".
"I think that the situation is happening because Ecuador is harvesting so much shrimp," Sharma, director of shrimp farming company Mayank Aquaculture, said. "What Chinese is offering is very much less, about $2.50- $3.00 for 40-50 count, and this is really a point of great worry to India also."
As Undercurrent News reported on July 1, farmgate prices for large shrimp in Ecuador have fallen fast in less than two weeks, between $0.10 per kilogram and $0.40/kg in the latest harvest, according to several sources in the industry.
"We are trying to survive, but this year is going to be very tough for most of us," a Facebook commenter on an Ecuadorian shrimp farmers' forum said. "Sadly, I believe this price trend could last for the rest of the year. I hope I'm wrong."
"It seems that packers are still dealing with overstock because shrimp needs to be continuously harvested and sold, and the global market, not just China, is not buying enough," another importer and distributor of Ecuadorian shrimp in southern Europe, who wished to remain anonymous, told Undercurrent at the time.
Meanwhile, noting that both markets are "sailing in the same boat," Sharma said that with close to 600,000 metric tons of storage capacity across India, farmers should meet and discuss with processors retaining stock while the latest crisis passes [...]
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