Indonesian shrimp production falls in 2015, against expectations : September 15, 2016
Neil Ramsden : Undercurrentnews
Indonesia’s shrimp production fell in 2015, contrary to expectations presented by the Global Aquaculture Alliance (GAA) at GOAL 2015.
GAA survey data presented at GOAL in Vancouver posited that Indonesia would be leading the recovery of shrimp farming in Asia, with volumes rising from slightly above 300,000 metric tons in 2013 to about 800,000t in 2017.
Data from the Indonesian government, shared with Undercurrent News by the Seafood Trade Intelligence Portal (STIP), has overall Indonesian shrimp production falling from 574,189t in 2014 to 536,320 in 2015. This is for both vannamei and monodon combined.
Production of vannamei alone has fallen from 442,380t to 411,453t.
It should be noted that the data presented at GOAL — see below — had 2014 volumes at just over 600,000t, increasing in small steps over the next three years, to reach 800,000t in 2017.
Sources have said in the past that Indonesian production is hard to estimate, and that the numbers that come out of the country are rarely reliable; even government statistics.
However accurate the figures are, it does seem that production has dropped rather than increased.
In 2014 and 2015, Indonesia overtook Ecuador, Vietnam and Thailand to become the second-largest supplier of shrimp to the US, after India.
Based on annual GAA industry survey. Slide from James Andersen presentation, GOAL 2015
Based on annual GAA industry survey. Slide from James Andersen presentation, GOAL 2015
According to import statistics from the National Marine Fisheries Service, the US — Indonesia’s most important shrimp market — imported 114,416t (worth $1.1 billion) from the Asian nation in 2015.
Despite the decrease in overall production, Indonesia did increase the proportion it sold to the US in 2015; this was up 11% by volume, from 2014’s 103,330t of imports (worth $1.32bn).
So far in 2016 (up to July) the US has imported 71,455t from Indonesia, at a cost of $661.8 million.
Looking at the first quarter of 2016, Jim Gulkin of shrimp and seafood trader Siam Canadian Group told Undercurrent that farmers in Indonesia were struggling with disease.
“But, raw material prices have been high. That is an impetus for the farmers to seed. There will likely be more disease problems, but more farmed area, driven by decent prices,” he said.
At that time he put Indonesian production for 2016 at a similar level to 2015, while GAA estimates had put 2016 at somewhere between 600,000t and 700,000t.
Regarding 2015 production, one trader told Undercurrent they did think 2015 volumes had fallen compared to 2014; the country struggled with white spot and enterocytozoon hepatopenaei (EHP), and prices had been tight on limited supplies, he said.
The shrimp panel at the Global Seafood Market Conference in Miami, Florida, held in January 2016, was less bullish than GAA at GOAL.
Overall, it believed production globally between 2014 and 2015 would be down slightly, including Indonesian production, which it put at around 400,000t — tallying with the recently-shared figures from the Indonesian government.
Similarly, it estimated that Indonesian production would be flat-to-down again in 2016, in line with global production.