Simão Zacarias, our Postdoctoral Research Fellow who is working on the Open Philanthropy funded project “Improving Farmed Fish Welfare in Asia”, and Richard Newton (our Lecturer in Resilient Food Systems) attended the Shrimp Summit organized by The Center for Responsible Seafood in Ho Chi Minh City – Vietnam from 24 to 28/07/2023.

Richard Newton giving his talk on sustainable feed during a plenary session

The summit addressed current challenges faced by global shrimp farming. The panels and attendees discussed topics on global production and market, disease management, shrimp breeding, grow-out intensification, sustainable feeds, improver programs, expanding the market, investment and innovation. Some main take aways:

1. A unified marketing campaign is urgently needed to boost global shrimp demand because now, there is higher supply and low demand which is dictating current low prices. Some stakeholders have already shown interest to commit to the campaign.

2. The phase out of eyestalk ablation in Pacific white shrimp (P. vannamei) is happening now and should no longer be an issue in the near future. On the other hand, progress is slower with black tiger shrimp (P. monodon) but should be achieved in the long term.

3. Welfare of shrimp should be considered and investigated when doing intensification. As an example, it has been highlighted that there is lack of knowledge of how stocking density in intensified systems affect shrimp welfare.

4. Attendees agreed that there was an urgent need for more sustainable feeds but also a lot of work was needed for legislation to keep pace with the science and the industry had to work hard to improve public perception of shrimp production.

As part of the summit, participants visited Minh Phu intensive shrimp farm and processing plant, Viet Uc shrimp hatchery, Quoc Viet shrimp processing plant, Vietnam Food Joint company which process shrimp heads to produce peptides, chitosan, food ingredients, astaxanthin, etc. There was also a visit to Ca Mau Black Tiger mangroves-shrimp extensive farming systems where there was an opportunity to plant some mangroves in areas close to mangroves-shrimp farms.

Simão Zacarias (middle) planting Mangroves in Ca Mau Province – Vietnam

Dr. Motasaku Fujinaga (Posthumous), considered as father of Shrimp farming, and Dr. Robins McIntosh were recognized with Lifetime Achievement Awards.