Status of aquaculture of Penaeus vannamei in China.

Abstract

China is a country with longest history of aquaculture in the world. Comparatively, shrimp culture is a relatively new industry in China. The earliest national production figure of cultured shrimp was 79 metric tons in 1970. It took more than 10 years for the production to reach 10,000 metric tons. The cultured shrimp production reached 10,093 metric tons in 1981.

In 1981-1988, China experienced the first golden period of shrimp culture industry development after the full maturation of mass production hatchery technique for shrimp (P. chinensis). The total production of cultured shrimp unbelievably increased to 199,418 metric tons in 1988 from 10,093 metric tons in 1981. However, the good times did not last long. The peak production maintained for 5 years only, ending in 1992 with production of 206,866 metric tons.

The serious outbreak of shrimp diseases badly hit China along with other shrimp producers in Asia. This resulted to the drop of cultured shrimp production to 87,856 mt in 1993, 40% of the highest production in 1991 (219,571 mt). The production continued to drop to 63,872 metric tons in 1994. The industry started to recover very slowly in the next 3 years, and regained its production of more than 100,000 tons in 1997 (102,923 mt). The slow recovery in cultured shrimp production in 1995-1998 was mainly due to modification in the culture system and techniques. Since 1998, China has been into a new era of fast growth in cultured shrimp production. The production has been keeping a very fast growth, from 143,086 mt in 1998 to 760,430 mt in 2003. The rapid growth of production during the last several years was mainly due to the rapid expansion of culture of Penaeus vannamei, an exotic shrimp species. Cultured shrimp production in China during 1984-2003.

It should be noted that the increase of cultured shrimp production was very abrupt in 2003 in China. It appears unbelievable. Two major reasons could be attributed to it in addition to the expansion of shrimp farming in China in 2003. One is due to the unreported freshwater production of P. vannamei before 2003. It was estimated that production of cultured P. vannamei in freshwater environment reached 160,000 metric tons in China in 2002. This production was not actually included in the total cultured shrimp production of the year. Secondly, it was only in 2003 when brackish and freshwater production of P. vannamei was separately reported.