Backyard hatcheries and small scale shrimp and prawn farming in Thailand

Abstract

Thailand has continued to retain the global dominance in shrimp production for over a decade in spite of many adversaries, providing a source of major income, foreign exchange generation, and livelihood opportunities. The Thai shrimp farming sector essentially consists of small scale owner-managed and operated practices, with an average farm size of 1.6 ha. The farming systems have been resilient and adaptive, which has been a key to their sustainability. One of the keys to continued success has been the emergence of backyard hatcheries that provide reliable quality seed stock to the industry. The government support to these hatcheries in the early stages, together with the effective dissemination of culture technologies through the initiatives of the farmers themselves at all stages of the cycle, has facilitated and enabled the farmers to be on a firm footing and encouraged them to embrace changes, and make it sustainable. All these factors together have made the Thai shrimp farming sector a success, while the sector in many of the neighboring countries became almost complete disreputable. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.