Sustainable Development and Environment Management

ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 1
Shrimp Farming
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ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 2
Shrimp Farming
Shrimp production industry is among the top agricultural earners in the world, becoming among
the most popular aquaculture. Shrimp is majorly produced on the large scale as farmers fear to
lose their customers in case their supply doesn’t meet the demands of the consumers, both locally
and internationally. Shrimp farming deals with aquaculture businesses that are carried out in
freshwater environments in an attempt to produce prawns and shrimp (Beattie, Melillo, and
O'Gorman, 2014, p. 100). Among the top producers in the world are United States, Japan and
Western Europe and in Asia, particularly China and Thailand. Marine shrimp farming is a very
important industry which has positively impacted to the developing countries through a
realization of increased GDP and development of infrastructure as well as enabling
industrialization. This essay will specifically examine the various environmental factors that
determine the large-scale farming of marine shrimp and determine how its products affect the
environment.
History and origin
Shrimp farming developed for many centuries in Southern Asia and currently all its operations
are carried out in a traditional manner. Shrimp farming originated from South East Asia as early
as at the beginning of the 15th century. In the 1930s, industrial shrimp farming began and was
conducted by the Japanese agrarians in kuruma shrimp. With all the varieties first discovered and
practiced in small-scale, ponds were used specifically to enhance monoculture and some other
times polyculture in case the shrimps were to be reared alongside other species (Verones, F,
2015, p. 10). They could substitute them with rice whenever the land seemed to dry. This type of
agriculture was only carried out along the coast or on river banks. Shrimp yield in the ponds and

ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 3
river banks has been increasing from period to period due to the application of modern farming
techniques some of which include the intensification of culture operations via regularization of
formulated feed, pond size, stocking density, and aeration application in the farming process.
The diagram below shows shrimp farming happening in the river shows and how it was
conducted in the past century.
Traditionally, the ponds used in shrimp farming were irregular in shape and sized between 3-20
hectares. The extensive culture operation employed has been considered the simplest approach to
seeds tock and shrimp farming to high productivity.
Extraction
Shrimp just like other marine life is captured from the water. Despite various fluctuations of
shrimps, marine shrimp farming nations have majored on the export of their products. For
example, Brazil realized an increase in production from 15000tons in 1950 to 80000tons in 2004
(Zhang et al., 2015, p. 22). The categories of shrimp grades and components vary according to
various factors including environment, geographical locations, climate and cultivation processes
as well as the age of shrimps. Various amendments and procedures are being put in practice in
order to increase the rate of extraction and lower its cost and timespan. The extraction of shimp
may be summed up as shown in the below image:

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Production and consumption
Shrimp farming increases its growth in production in order to cope with the demand in the
market. Its market is increasingly enlarging all over the world with the western countries being
on the frontline experience this commodity. It has actually grown higher within a span of the last
54 years according to research, increasing from 15000tons in 1950 to 80000tons in 2004. The
demand is almost surpassing the supply, though the marine shrimp farming countries are
ensuring that they produce higher yields as compared to their previous seasons. Generally, all the
producer countries do it for export, but they end up exporting less than 50% of the total
production as demand from the locals' increases steadily (ITC, 2015, p. 45).
The production of shrimps, in this case, is directly linked to its consumption simply because it is
noticed that the consumption rate increases as the production increases too, hence increasing the
overall fame of the industry. Asian countries such as China are the leading consumers and
producers as well, of shrimps in the world, which is directly proportional to their production
respectively. The US does the production for specifically importation purposes (Seixas, 2015).
This may be shown as below:

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Large-scale shrimp production is affected by environmental factors, either positively or
negatively, which automatically reflects the total yield. One of the major factors is climate. It is
defined as the current weather conditions of the place, comprising of the precipitation, pressure,
humidity, and temperature. Climate is prone to changes. Whenever it becomes too hot, the
evaporation rate in the water bodies is likely to increase causing heavy rainfalls. This leads to
rising of sea level and endangering the marine life (Amaral et al., 2014, p. 20).
Shrimp production has negatively been affected by disease problems repeatedly. In 1993, china
was greatly affected by a shrimp viral disease that reduced the totals percentage of production by
a large margin. Governments import regulations have also been a big blow to the shrimp farmers
and producers as well (Chaves et al. 2013, p. 200). They normally don't allow shrimps
contaminated by chemicals to be imported. This automatically lowers the investment levels
especially in those places where land price and wages are low. Initially, poor people could get
jobs in the coastal regions where shrimps were being reared but due to increased market prices of
the same, they have lost those jobs and the foreign currency being earned by the government
remains negligible. Whenever heavy rains are experienced, high rate of erosion occurs and is
mostly followed by drains and formation of salts which is a major threat to associated marine
schemes (Marroquin-Cardona et al., 2014, p. 56).

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Fertilizers applied to these land plantations also affect the soil negatively as they lower the pH as
well as directing the chemicals to the nearby riverbanks whenever it rains. This causes harm to
the lives of the shrimps and also being a threat to those farmers who depend on the river water
for irrigation (Andretta, 2015, p. 66). Another environmental disturbance for shrimp farming is
that most of the production industries in developing countries are normally not keen in their
disposal and waste management (Rajapaksha et al. 2014). They sometimes direct their wastes to
water bodies, endangering the marine life. These emissions contain harmful gases such as carbon
dioxide, carbon monoxide, and sulfur gases.

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