About the project

About

Project background

Aquaculture is a huge international industry and the fastest growing food production sector. Bangladesh is the 8th largest aquaculture producer globally, and the aquaculture industry is an important source of livelihoods and food security across the country. Shrimp is Bangladesh’s second most valuable export product, with a market value of USD 935 million in 2020¹. The expansion of the shrimp industry is an important component of the Bangladesh Government’s 5-year economic growth strategy, but this is being threatened by high and increasing losses due to disease.

Shrimp hatcheries take wild breeding adult animals (broodstock) that have been caught by trawlers in the Bay of Bengal, and use them to produce larval or post-larval (PL) animals for the farming sector (approximately 300,000 farmers). Ensuring a reliable, healthy supply of PL is key to the long-term sustainability of the whole shrimp industry. Low quality PL poses a greater risk of spreading disease to farms, and provides a poorer yield at harvest.

In recent years, PL production has become increasingly challenging, mainly due to rising levels of disease, dwindling numbers and health of wild broodstock, and difficulties in accessing good quality water. Many hatcheries have ceased trading, and there are now 59 shrimp hatcheries operating in the Cox’s Bazar (southeast) region of Bangladesh. In this project we have been working with 13 hatcheries to understand their biosecurity risks and identify potential solutions.

Improved biosecurity within the hatchery sector is key to building resilience across the industry. Good biosecurity practices will help to reduce the likelihood of disease outbreaks, and minimise the impact of any outbreaks that do occur. It will improve animal health, leading to greater productivity, and it will reduce the need for chemical and drug use, which are responsible for polluting the local environment and threatening biodiversity.

¹ FishstatJ database, available at www.fao.org/fishery/statistics/software/fishstatj/en

Project team

This project is a partnership between the University of Exeter, WorldFish, and the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science. These partners have been supported in creating the digital tools by the Center for Communication Action Bangladesh.

Thanks

This project would not be possible without the support of the hatcheries. Our sincere thanks go to all of them for warmly welcoming us into their hatcheries and working with us so openly. 

The project was originally funded by a Research Grant from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

We were delighted to be awarded additional Official Development Assistance (ODA) funding from the UK Government (DEFRA), through our partnership with the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS). This allowed us to conduct Industry sustainability reports.