Indian shrimp aquaculture has been growing at a galloping pace ever since the introduction of vannamei in 2019. India is the only country among the shrimp producing countries which imports all its broodstock required - more than 200,000 animals every year. India is also the only country in the world to take the entire broodstock through a central quarantine wherein the broodsrock is tested for all the OIE listed diseases before getting released to the respective hatcheries.
Of late, the profitability of the farmers is coming down as the emerging diseases are making the operations unviable and WSSV, the good old viral pathogen continues to play havoc every now and then. The conventional SPF stocks don't seem to be giving all that good results as there is an explosion of farming on many creeks limiting the carrying capacity. Implementing foolproof bio-security measures is also very difficult as the farmers are small with average per capita land holding less than 2 HA. What the industry needs at this juncture is tolerant stocks for both WSSV and pathogenic bacteria. We need to look at Ecuador's sustainability over the years and type of the broodstock the industry there is working with.
Apart from bio-security and carrying capacity issues, high temperature in summer months is exacerbating the bacterial problems, contributing to morbidities and mortalities. Indigenous species like monodon and indicus stand a better chance in summer. Once domesticated stocks of these two species are available, they would also help the traditional tide fed farmers -- who are presently getting very low survivals -- to improve their efficiencies. In a country like India it is very difficult to change the farming infrastructure to give better bio-security and enable high stocking densities. It makes sense to change the horses than the courses