The fourth annual crop review was held in Chennai. Sixty five invited dignitaries attended. One crop report each from Tamil Nadu, South Andhra, Central AP, North AP, Odisha, West Bengal & North India and West Coast of India (Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka and Kerala) were presented by regional experts, Mr A. Kumaresan (Sheng Long), Mr V.R. Mansingh (CP), Mr Shrinibas Mohanty (Avanti), Mr Ganesh Arekere (CP), Mr Anupam Pande (Poseidon) and Mr Vivek Kadolkar (Grobest). The session was moderated by Mr S. Muthukaruppan. At the end, SAP's veteran data masters and Past Presidents, Mr Ravi Kumar Yellanki, Mr S. Chandrasekar and Mr Muthukaruppan reconciled the shrimp production data with the export data, hatchery production data and feed sales data. Our estimate for farmed shrimp production in 2023 was 900,000 tons. Compared to our estimate for 2022 which was 930,000 tons this was a slight contraction. But, there is a general consensus that production will drop in 2023 on account of depressed global prices and increased cost of production. We may end up producing 750,000 to 800,000 tons in 2023.
The stakeholder discussion moderated by our Immediate Past President Mr Ravi Kumar Yellanki in the afternoon took each major impediment to the sector's growth and analyzed the reasons and tried to come up with answers. We certainly need to work with broodstock suppliers to come up with disease resistant stocks. We have to ask the farmers to stock only if they are confident of a successful crop, stock well within the carrying capacity of the farm and look for every opportunity for operating cost reduction. Government has to work on barriers to exports in the European and Asian markets.
The final presentation of the day was by yours truly on domestic marketing of shrimp. If we want one third to one half of our farmed production to enter into domestic market, we need to organize ourselves better and promote shrimp much more aggressively. We have floated a plan that gained wide acceptance during the meeting.
Society of