After a slump in the wake of COVID-induced economic crisis, the prices of shrimps have now recovered bringing cheers to farmers in South Coastal Andhra Pradesh. All aqua farms in the coastal region are active with farmers gearing up to make good of the favourable situation to maximise returns. They mainly cultivate pacific white-leg shrimp ((Litopenaeus Vannamei) in the districts of SPSR Nellore and Prakasam to cater to the demand for the produce in the USA as also European countries. “There has been a jump of over Rs. 100 per kg in the rates now. A count of 30 fetched a price of Rs. 530 per kg, 40-count Rs. 430 per kg, 50-count Rs. 360,” says a shrimp farmer from Tangutur Ramesh Reddy. Meanwhile, conscious of cutting costs to maximise returns, a progressive farmer K. Nishant Reddy urges fellow shrimp farmers to adopt intensive production method to stay in contention even when other production factors remained unfavourable. Overseeing the water quality in his farm at Koduru, near T.P.Guduru mandal, the GenX farmer says the aqua farmers could make big gains “by growing shrimp in Biofloc at higher stocking densities of 200 pieces/m2 and achieving an average harvest volume of 4 kg per m2”. By doing so, shrimp farmers could achieve a production of 160 tonnes of shrimp in one hectare per year. They could harvest shrimp four times in a year by going in for ‘biofloc nursery’, explains the shrimp farmer. Bioflocs are aggregates of algae, bacteria, protozoans and other kinds of particulate organic matter which helps the farmers to meet about 20% of the feed cost on their own.
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