Shrimp Farm, Thailand by Asiatravel.com

Asiatravel.com offers over 500,000 Hotels, Flights, Travel Packages, Tours & Attractions up to 75% discount. All with last minute availability & instant confirmation plus up to 5% cash rebate exclusively for our customers. For more information visit http://www.asiatravel.com A shrimp farm is an aquaculture business for the cultivation of marine shrimp or prawnsa for human consumption. Commercial shrimp farming began in the 1970s, and production grew steeply, particularly to match the market demands of the U.S., Japan and Western Europe. The total global production of farmed shrimp reached more than 1.6 million tonnes in 2003, representing a value of nearly 9,000 million U.S. dollars. About 75% of farmed shrimp is produced in Asia, in particular in China and Thailand. The other 25% is produced mainly in Latin America, where Brazil is the largest producer. The largest exporting nation is Thailand. Shrimp farming has changed from traditional, small-scale businesses in Southeast Asia into a global industry. Technological advances have led to growing shrimp at ever higher densities, and broodstock is shipped worldwide. Virtually all farmed shrimp are penaeids (i.e., shrimp of the family Penaeidae), and just two species of shrimp—the Penaeus vannamei (Pacific white shrimp) and the Penaeus monodon (giant tiger prawn)—account for roughly 80% of all farmed shrimp. These industrial monocultures are very susceptible to diseases, which have caused several regional wipe-outs of farm shrimp populations. Increasing ecological problems, repeated disease outbreaks, and pressure and criticism from both NGOs and consumer countries led to changes in the industry in the late 1990s and generally stronger regulation by governments. In 1999, a program aimed at developing and promoting more sustainable farming practices was initiated, including governmental bodies, industry representatives, and environmental organizations. When shrimp farming emerged in the 1970s as an economically viable alternative to satisfy growing market demands that had surpassed the capacity of the wild shrimp fishery, the subsistence farming methods of old were rapidly replaced by the more intensive practices of an export-oriented business. Industrial shrimp farming at first followed these traditional methods with so-called extensive shrimp farms, but compensated for the low yield per area with increased pond sizes: instead of ponds of just a few hectares, ponds of sizes up to 100 ha (one km²) were used in some places. The initially largely unregulated business boomed, and in many regions whole coastlines were transformed and huge areas of mangroves cleared. Further technological advances made more intensive farming practices possible that could achieve higher yields per area while using less land. Semi-intensive and intensive farms appeared, where the shrimp were reared on artificial feeds and ponds were actively managed. Although there are still many extensive farms, new farms typically are of the (semi-)intensive kind. Until the mid-1980s, most shrimp farms were stocked with young wild shrimp, called postlarvae, typically caught by local fishermen. Postlarvae fishing became an important economic sector in many countries. To counteract the beginning depletion of fishing grounds and to ensure a steady supply of young shrimp to farms, the industry started raising shrimp from the egg and maintaining adult shrimp for reproductive purposes in specialized installations called hatcheries. Info Taken from Wikipedia.com Credits to Wikipedia.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrimp_farm Main