No ban on shrimp farming: Mpeda

It has recently announced crop holiday as a precautionary measure against the spread of early mortality syndrome

Marine Products Export Development Authority (Mpeda)  chairman, Leena Nair, today clarified it had not banned shrimp farming in the country. However, she said it only announced a crop holiday in the light of spread of early mortality syndrome (EMS) in southeast Asian countries.

In order to prevent / control the spread of EMS disease  in shrimp aquaculture farms and hatcheries in India; to  protect the availability of raw materials for exports of all crustaceans from the country and to maintain the level of current exports, the Mpeda recently  announced certain control measures.

Being the nodal agency for promotion of seafood exports from the country, Mpeda has vested interest in taking steps to protect the shrimp farming in the country so that the exports are sustained.

In this connection, a decision was taken after consultation with all the stakeholders, including the Seafood Exporters Association of India (SEAI) and Farmers' Federations that India must adopt stringent preventive measures to ensure there are no aquaculture production losses due to EMS. The disease is prevalent in southeast Asia, and  causes a huge loss to shrimp farming there.

The aquaculture season in India is mainly from February and early Nov. Instead of having a shrimp culture in small pockets throughout the coastal states, it was felt that a uniform crop holiday will be observed by all stakeholders for 2-3 months, from Dec to early Feb so as to ensure a complete dry out of ponds before taking up the next crop.

Nair stated it was unfortunate some websites had wrongly interpreted this as "Mpeda to halt all shrimp farming in India by the end of February 2014". Hence, it had to clarify that teh body was not going to halt shrimp farming by the end of February 2014. In fact the crop holiday from December 2013 to February 2014 was to be viewed as making preparation for a bumper crop in 2014, she said.