Better Management Practices for sustainable small-scale shrimp farming

Abstract

Better management practices (BMPs) for shrimp farming are a standardized set of farming practices to ensure the environmental and financial sustainability of shrimp farming systems. Uniform implementation of the BMPs poses a challenge if most of the shrimp farms in a given region are small (<2 ha). The adoption of BMPs and the associated economics were studied in two districts of Andhra Pradesh, the state that leads India's shrimp production. The overall rate of adoption was approximately 73%. Using factor analysis, all the partly adopted BMPs were categorized into six thematic factors: optimized input supply, improved management practices, routine maintenance, social responsibility, group approach, and culture-system-related and other practices. The ordinary least square regression model explained the factors that influenced the decision to adopt a given practice. These factors included key socio-economic variables such as age, education, and membership of farmers associations. Partial budget analysis revealed that adopting all the recommended BMPs in full would decrease the net returns from each crop by 16.6%. Although adopting the BMPs is voluntary, the practices crucial to the success of a crop were adopted by all the farmers (almost as if it were mandatory to adopt them), whereas those that involved significant costs were left out. Although small farmers can be persuaded to adopt the BMPs through awareness programmes, upgrading their holdings to a size at which a standardized farming system is feasible needs substantial investment. The governments of shrimp-exporting nations should improve their regulatory structure to embrace an inclusive governance model involving all the key actors in the value chain to make the small scale shrimp farming sustainable.