Resisting the blue revolution: Contending coalitions surrounding industrial shrimp farming

Human Organization, Spring 2000 by Stonich, Susan C, Bailey, Conner

Over the last two decades, total production of farmed shrimp has grown at a faster rate than any other aquacultural product. From 1975 to 1985 the production of farm-raised shrimp increased 300 percent, and from 1985 to 1995 global production rose 250 percent (Rosenberry 1998). In 1998, world production of cultured shrimp was an estimated 737,200 metric tons, about 30 percent of the total amount of shrimp produced globally (Rosenberry 1998). According to a recent industry projection, farmed shrimp may represent 54 percent of world shrimp production by 2005 (Rosenberry 1998). Approximately 72 percent of cultured shrimp are raised in Asia, while the rest come primarily from Latin America. Since 1991, Thailand has been the world's largest producer of cultured shrimp-its 1998 production constituted 29 percent of total global production. Elsewhere in Asia, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines are the major producers, while in Latin America, Ecuador, Mexico, Colombia, and Honduras lead in the production of farmed shrimp. Cultivated shrimp exceed all other aquacultural crops in the use of purchased inputs: they are the greatest consumers of commercial aquacultural feeds and account for the largest number of companies involved in aquaculture (Ratafia 1995).

While 99 percent of cultured shrimp are raised in the third world, virtually all are exported to industrial countries, principally to the U.S., Europe, and Japan. This raises serious questions about cultured shrimp's capacity to improve nutritional status among the poor in the countries where they are produced. Not only do cultured shrimp contribute little to local food availability where they are grown, the increasing use of low-value fish species in the production of fishmeal for aquacultural feeds in effect puts the poor in competition with shrimp for low-quality fish products (Kent 1995). A significant recent development in Thailand is the spread of lowsalinity cultivation methods into inland agricultural areas including Thailand's "rice bowl" - locales previously used to grow rice for both domestic consumption and export (Flaherty and Vandergeest 1998). While the environmental repercussions of this expansion are profound, the nutritional consequences on the poor may be crucial as well, especially if low-salinity methods spread to other nations.

The explosive growth of the industry has generated mounting criticisms over its social, economic, and environmental consequences. The escalating conflicts between critics and supporters of industrial shrimp farming have transcended local and national arenas. These tensions have catalyzed the formation of global alliances of environmental and peasant-based nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) opposed to shrimp farming and industry groups seeking to counter the claims and campaigns of the resistance coalition. Major environmental groups, including Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), as well as private foundations such as the MacArthur Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, have become involved in the network resisting industrial shrimp farming. These organizations and individuals have found common cause with less well-known NGOs such as the Mangrove Action Project (MAP) and several hundred community-based southern NGOs. In 1997, these groups established the Industrial Shrimp Action Network (ISA Net). The growing strength and accomplishments of the global resistance alliance in turn elicited organized response from supporters of the shrimp industry (producers, processors, importers, input suppliers) and its government and academic supporters, who formed the Global Aquaculture Alliance (GAA) in the same year.