Socio-economic impacts of Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak on world shrimp aquaculture sector

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is now spreading throughout the world affecting the agricultural activities including fish and shrimp culture sectors. Most of the shrimp producing countries particularly in South-east Asia have been affected due to the lockdown, quarantine roles and regulations ordered by the countries, which was assigned to reduce and control the COVID-19 pandemic spreading in the globe. The current establishment of the restriction and quarantine roles has significantly reduced the domestic and international transportations that can seriously affect the shrimp supply chain in the world. Further, the labor shortage, delay in shrimp harvesting and insufficient supply for the processing of shrimp in the plants are other impacts due to coronavirus outbreaks. The impacts of COVID-19 disease on world shrimp aquaculture can be numerous and is varied depending on the several factors. For instance shrimp culture in some countries such as India and Thailand could be seriously affected by insufficient SPF-shrimp broodstocks, labor shortage, transport restrictions, delayed harvesting (results in soft-shell shrimp) and uncertainty in shrimp trade whereas in other regions including Indonesia and Vietnam the Coronavirus-side effects on shrimp industry are relatively low. This review addressed the socio-economic impacts due to COVID-19 on the shrimp aquaculture sector in 2020.