From Bubba Gump to bust? American shrimpers face extinction.
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Patrik Jonsson Staff writer
| Tybee Island, Ga.
On a chilly December morning, the captain of the Miss Patti is ready to throw his lines and go shrimping 鈥� well, almost. Brian Jordan鈥檚 deckhand is in a foul mood, and it鈥檚 no wonder why. Is any of this worth it?聽
Here on the tiny working waterfront of Tybee Island, Georgia, the hesitancy is logical. Shrimp prices cratered during the past year, and hundreds of boats from Brownsville, Texas, to Harkers Island, North Carolina, remained dockside.
The problem hasn鈥檛 been a lack of shrimp or the price of diesel. Instead, freezers across the United States are filled to the gills. A glut of imported shrimp has dropped the price to about half of what shrimp boats received in the 1980s.
Why We Wrote This
American shrimp boats are being made obsolete by foreign shrimp farms, many with dubious practices. To survive, boat captains will need to reinvent themselves as innovators and entrepreneurs.
At stake is the livelihood of Mr. Jordan and shrimpers like him nationwide. They can鈥檛 compete with overseas rivals聽who raise and harvest shrimp in lower-cost 鈥渁quaculture鈥欌�� farms. There, baby shrimp essential to the marine life food chain are raised in聽artificial聽saltwater ponds, then harvested in bulk and sold for reduced prices around the world.
Because shrimp is the most valuable marine product traded in the world today 鈥� growing from a $10.6 billion industry in 2005 to over $60 billion in 2022 鈥� the shift is consequential on many fronts. The practice is generating substantial income for developing countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, India, Vietnam, Brazil, Ecuador, and Bangladesh.
But the trend, some experts say, hurts more than just seafaring boaters like Mr. Jordan: Much of the overseas aquaculture industry is damaging to the environment, they say.
The average annual per capita consumption of shrimp in the U.S. is now at 4 pounds.
According to the World Wildlife Fund, it takes three to six months to raise market-sized shrimp, with many farmers growing two to three crops per year. , most of which are in tropical climates, is substantial, dumping organic waste, chemicals, and antibiotics into groundwater and estuaries, and salt into agricultural land.听At the same time, the reality is that aquaculture is likely here to stay, and can be done in more responsible ways. The U.S. shrimping industry that survives will likely look quite different from what has existed for generations. The question is how shrimpers will adapt and innovate to change with the times.
鈥淵ou need to be both a farmer and entrepreneur if you want to succeed,鈥� says Frank Asche, a natural resource economist at the University of Florida in Gainesville. 鈥淎nd in some sense, that鈥檚 the challenge of the U.S. shrimp fleet.鈥�
鈥淚mplied fraud鈥�
For Mr. Jordan, the shrimp market of today is what he refers to as 鈥渋mplied fraud.鈥�
鈥淭he consumer sees a picture of a shrimp boat and some nets hanging there, and they assume that the shrimp are from America,鈥� he says. 鈥淎nd for the most part, they are not.鈥�
The growth of aquaculture has more than halved the U.S. shrimp fleet since the 1990s. Today, less than 10% of the domestic supply is wild-caught U.S. shrimp. And the trend hasn鈥檛 hit just shrimpers. Fisheries from salmon to catfish have been affected as aquaculture farmers fine-tune their processes, products, and prices.
Concerns about global aquaculture are varied. There is documented use of slave labor and the application of antibiotics and herbicides to farm ponds. Aquaculture operations have also been known to clear-cut mangrove swamps 鈥� the nurseries of many ocean species 鈥� to make room for shrimp ponds.
鈥淚t鈥檚 very difficult to know where your shrimp is coming from,鈥� Ryan Bigelow, of the initiative Seafood Watch,聽.听
But the industry is also fragmented. Products grown more ethically tend to be sold in Europe and the U.S., while products that don鈥檛 meet those standards are sold in less-advanced economies where aquaculture has boomed, says Professor Asche.
鈥淭hat is putting on that slow pressure for the wild fishers,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 the main driving force.鈥�
And it鈥檚 not just American shrimp boats falling prey. American attempts at aquaculture are struggling to compete, too.
Some 100 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, David Teichert-Coddington grows shrimp in two dozen ponds drawn from the Eutaw Reservoir in Boligee, Alabama. The water is saline enough, when amended with other minerals, to grow shrimp and grow them fast.
He can say his shrimp are U.S. grown. But that market, too, is flooded. Meanwhile, Ecuadorian shrimp are clean, well-packaged, and tasty, he says. As a result, Mr. Teichert-Coddington may leave his ponds empty next year.
鈥淲hat you run into is, 鈥榊eah, I like the story and the product, I鈥檇 love to buy it, but what鈥檚 the price?鈥欌�� says the former university professor, who started Greene Prairie Aquafarm 23 years ago. 鈥淭hat it鈥檚 chemical-free and a USA product almost always just doesn鈥檛 matter. Their pocketbook talks first.鈥�
Glimpses of the future
Mr. Teichert-Coddington聽is in the same boat as Tommy Faulkner, another Tybee Island captain. To Mr. Faulkner, reframing the industry from fiercely independent seafarers to savvier domestic resource harvesters is part of a necessary shift. That could unlock federal aid.
鈥淎t the end of the day, my boat is a sea tractor and we鈥檙e farmers who go out and harvest a crop,鈥� he says.
鈥淭here鈥檚 no one solution,鈥� adds Paige Morrison, executive director of the Georgia Commercial Fisherman鈥檚 Association in Savannah. 鈥淚t鈥檚 going to take legislation, it鈥檚 going to take support and awareness and education, it鈥檚 going to take a new marketing system 鈥� a whole new business model.鈥�
But there are potential ways forward.听
The World Wildlife Fund, for one, is working to develop enforceable standards that reduce negative environmental and social impacts and ensure quality and safety, while improving aquaculture practices through tech innovations like forensic analysis of farmed products. The group is also working to encourage practices that help traditional shrimpers still make a living.听
And a new red snapper fishery in the Gulf of Mexico, for example, has found success with new premium markets, safer and more professional methods, and good prices 鈥� albeit with fewer boats.
鈥淚 think what we鈥檙e looking at is a system in transition and where it is going depends,鈥� says Phil Loring, author of 鈥淔inding Our Niche: Toward a Restorative Human Ecology,鈥� and a food systems expert at The Nature Conservancy. 鈥淲ith the right nudges, it could be really something that features the character of local and regional food, supports a blue-collar culture, and supports working waterfronts that people like to see.鈥�
Editor鈥檚 note: In a sentence about price declines, a time reference has been corrected to encompass 2023.
