Shrimp is the second largest source of export from Bangladesh which earned as much as 378 million US dollar in the year 2003-04. A non-traditional export item in the late 1980s, shrimp has systematically grown into a major export sector of Bangladesh over the years. Commercial culture of shrimp increased rapidly in the coastal belt of Bangladesh and it went through several stages of transformation. During the last ten years, Bangladesh has earned international credibility by responding to the food-safety and quality requirements of its destinations, mostly, the United States and the European Union countries. Continuous investment has enabled the sector to progress in the teeth of competition from other countries.
Bangladeshi Black Tiger (BAGDA) is renowned for its cute look and very good taste and constitutes two-thirds of the country’s shrimp export. In the recent years, Bangladesh has invested substantially to be able to respond to the food and quality requirements of the international organizations. It has developed a quality control programme based on the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) approach, in addition to meeting standards as specified by the Codex Alimentarius Commission. As many as 72 processing plants have been approved by the European Commission for exporting shrimp and fish products to the European Union member states. A Seal of Quality programme is under the auspices of the Agro-based Industries and Technology Development Project (ATDP) is progressing with success. Recently, Bangladesh has also initiated projects for implementing ‘traceability’ regulations of the EU.
It may be noted that, in addition to sustained emphasis on food-safety requirements, Bangladesh has also focused on organic production of shrimp. Swiss Import Promotion Programme (SIPPO) is assisting Bangladesh in this initiative.
The progress made by the shrimp industry of Bangladesh is reflected in continuous diversification in tems of both production and market. A larger number of export processors are now producing greater amount of value-added products such as individually quick-frozen (IQF) , peeled and deveined, and butterfly-cut shrimps as well as cooked and semi-cooked products. Click HERE for a profile on the different fish, shrimps and other frozen food products exported from Bangladesh.
There are 132 shrimp processing factories in Bangladesh located mostly in Khulna and Chittagong areas of the country and about 67 hatcheries, mostly in Cox’s Bazar area. The direct and indirect employment generated by the Shrimp sector is about 900,000, next to the ready-made garments sector of the country. In the recent years, value-added products have constituted about 33 percent of total exports of 32,000 metric tons valued at 378 million US dollar.
The high quality and very tasty shrimp of Bangladesh owes much to its traditional method of farming. Experts often describe this as near-organic mode of cultivation. There are currently approximately 41,000 farms cultivating bagda (black tiger shrimp) with an average farm size of 4.5 ha. Thirty-one thousand tons of bagda was produced in 2004. Bagda production has increased by 20 per cent per annum in the last twenty years. There are also 30,000 ha of land under galda (sweet water shrimp) production that produced 11,942 tons in 2001. Because galda farms are generally smaller than bagda mud (averaging 0.28 ha and four ha respectively), they support a greater proportion of poor and marginal farmers.
There are 105,000 galda farms, mostly located in the Khulna area although this method of cultivation is spreading rapidly in other parts of Bangladesh. Unlike brackish water cultivation of bagda (black tiger shrimp, Penaeus monodon), freshwater galda cultivation is not restricted to the coastal regions and is expanding at a rate of 10–20 per cent per annum. Moreover, galda shrimp (fresh water scampi, Marobhrachium rosenbergii) farming is usually done on family farms by small farmers who have transformed their tiny plots of agricultural land into shrimp-cum-rice farms.
Product - Shrimp
