Shrimp plague boosts prices

An outbreak of disease in Asian farmed shrimp is crippling the overseas export market into the U.S., industry sources and government officials say, pumping up shrimp prices at docks in Louisiana and elsewhere along the Gulf of Mexico.

What has become a tragedy for shrimp farmers in Asia has turned into a boom market for domestic fishers of wild U.S. shrimp, who are seeing the best prices paid dockside in years.

“I think it’s fixing to skyrocket,” said Ronnie Anderson, a Montegut shrimper and board member of the Louisiana Shrimp Association. “We’ve been waiting for prices to go up since 2002, trying and fighting and it never quite happened.”

Tariffs on shrimp, hard-won after an expensive legal battle spearheaded by the eight-state Southern Shrimp Alliance in 2004, have had some effect on the industry, and allowed deals that kept domestic fishermen from being buried in an avalanche of shrimp that were sent to the US in violation of some of its trade rules.

The explosion in dockside prices is expected to continue.

Grand Isle shrimp buyer Dean Blanchard, who has recently opened a dock operation in Dulac, said there is no mistaking the cause and effect relationship.

“There is a shortage of shrimp because of what’s going on over there in Asia,” Blanchard said. “I had been thinking this was our only salvation. The diseases and cures in those ponds, they been going back and forth trying to find an antibody that will take care of it.”

Blanchard said the biggest shrimp, 9-12 per pound individually quick frozen, are getting $4.80 to the boat. Shrimp running 13-15 per pound are fetching $3.30, all prices that over the past several years were unheard of.

Early mortality syndrome caused by a strain of the vulnificus bacteria – deadly to shrimp but generally not harmful to humans – has decimated shrimp population in Asian aquaculture operations. Thailand, the top shrimp producer to the U.S., has been hit especially hard.

Thai shrimp industry reps have been quoted in trade journals as saying that production there could fall to nearly half what it is now. Ecuador, India and other nations not affected by the disease but which raise pond shrimp are expected to pick up some of the slack, but so far the result on domestic shrimp prices has been positive.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, a bacterium commonly found in brackish coastal waters around the globe, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, is the culprit.

The diseases associated with the bacteria initially was spotted in 2009, according to the UN. By 2010 outbreaks had become serious and affected shrimp in China. Farms in Hainan, Guangdong, Fujian and Guangxi suffered almost 80 percent losses, a UN report says.

Clinical signs of the disease include lethargy, slow growth, an empty stomach and midgut and a pale and atrophied hepatopancreas, the equivalent of a liver in a shrimp, along with black streaks.

Within 30 days of a pond being stocked, the UN says, large-scale die-offs begin.

In addition to Thailand and China, countries reporting the problem include Malaysia and Vietnam.

Thai officials have told trade press representatives that they expect the outbreak to be quelled by 2014.

But Julie Falgout, an extension specialist at Louisiana Seagrant, said this is not a time for local fishermen to rest on their gunwales.

The outbreaks won’t last forever, and when the shrimp supplies overseas build back up, prices here are sure to come down. Now is a good time, Falgout said, for fishermen to explore direct marketing opportunities that her agency and others offer.

Most importantly, she said, it’s important for fishermen not to see the increase in prices as a permanent windfall.

“It allows a window of opportunity for high prices,” Falgout said. “But it is temporary. It is a chance to make some extra money that can be put aside and used wisely to better the future.”