How India has gone to become the world's second largest shrimp producer

Till 2008, like any other shrimp farmer in India, Saji Chacko too was struggling with his farm at Bilimora in Gujarat because of repeated outbreaks of diseases. He decided to do something about it and in 2009, became the first farmer in India to get a licence to commercially produce pathogen-free Pacific white shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei).

With that, the story of his shrimp business turned. And so did that of India’s shrimp industry, as the country opened the doors to farmers like Chako to start producing this disease-free variety. Today, the country is the second largest producer of shrimps in the world, second only to Ecuador.

Shrimps now make for 67 per cent of India’s seafood exports of $7.8 billion,