LAND USE EFFICIENCY IN SHRIMP AQUACULTURE

Claude E. Boyd* and Aaron A. McNevin
 
 School of Fisheries, Aquaculture and Aquatic Sciences
 Auburn University
 Auburn, AL 36849
 boydce1@auburn.edu
 

The amount of land devoted to pond water surface area for penaeid shrimp farming was estimated to be 2,260,000 ha. This area resulted in production of 4,876,586 metric tons (t) of shrimp in 2015. About 1,400,000 ha of pond area were in extensive culture that produced around 500,000 t of shrimp (mainly Penaeus monodon) - average yield of 0.36 t/ha/yr. The increase in shrimp production since 2000 has resulted almost entirely from an increase in semi-intensive and especially intensive culture of Litopenaeus vannamei. Annual, global production of this species increased from 154,515 t in 2000 to 3,879,786 t in 2015, while during this period, production of P. monodon and a few other shrimp species by aquaculture fluctuated between 883,644 t and 1,095,457 t with no trend of increase or decrease.  The estimated average yield of L. vannamei was 5,700 kg/ha/yr in 2015, but average production tended to be much greater in Asia than in Latin America.

Semi-intensive and intensive shrimp culture is feed-based. The amount of land used for producing ingredients for the 7,450,000 t of shrimp feed reportedly used in 2015 was estimated as 1,862,500 ha. The global FCR for penaeid shrimp likely was around 1.7, and land use for shrimp feed ingredients was about 0.425 ha/t of shrimp. At a yield of 5,700 kg/ha/yr of shrimp, each tonne of shrimp would require 0.175 ha of land for pond surface area and 0.425 ha of land for feed ingredients - 0.60 ha/t of shrimp. Production of 1 t of shrimp by extensive production would require 2.78 ha of pond water surface area. Although extensive shrimp production does not require feed, it uses, on average, 4.6 times more land than does feed-based culture per tonne of shrimp. The most efficient way to conserve land in shrimp farming would be to phase out extensive culture in favor of feed-based culture and to further intensify production in semi-intensive and intensive systems.