Shrimp is Bangladesh’s main agricultural export and makes a substantial contribution to the economy of southern Bangladesh, but the sector has a checkered history. Bangladesh’s shrimp production and exports have been in steady decline, since peaking in the early 2010’s. Most shrimp exports from Bangladesh are used by the food service and niche ethnic markets in Europe. The complex nature of shrimp supply chains in Bangladesh, comprised of hundreds of thousands of small polyculture farms and tens of thousands of small traders, make it difficult to implement tracea bility and certification initiatives – now a prerequisite for entry into most supermarket supply chains. This report provides an overview of the sector and the challenges it faces, drawing on secondary and survey data, reviews of government reports and academic literature. We also report the findings of an expert consultation conducted to identify key constraints and potential solutions. The consensus among industry stakeholders who were part of the expert consultations is that issues related to the supply and quality of shrimp seed and pond management practices represent some of the most pressing, yet relatively simple-to-solve challenges currently faced by the sector. This would serve as the foundation for establishing traceability and certification processes. Previous interventions aimed at upgrading production practices (such as promoting stocking of disease-free shrimp seed) and facilitating disintermediation and transparency in the supply chain (such as by establishing producer groups, shrimp collection centers, and contracts with processors), have met with limited success. We outline potential interventions and partners that might offer scalable solutions enabling small shrimp farmers to access global markets.

Lead firms, development organisations, donors and governments view value chains and voluntary standards as vital instruments for achieving millennium development goals through trade and market-related interventions. The precise foundations for these development strategies, which suggest positive development outcomes from integration of poor actors into value chains, are as yet underdeveloped. The interdisciplinary work in this volume shows how trade is managed and asks theory-driven questions about how value chains relate to locally-rooted development processes. Policy makers and development practitioners are increasingly using value chain analysis to frame pro-poor development interventions. This book offers multiple conceptualizations of development outcomes of inclusion of small producers, firms and workers in value chains. Processes of inclusion at different scales are unpacked in order to identify the terms of participation of small producers, firms and workers. As value chains are embedded, the book further argues that inclusion can be conceptualized as the degree of alignment between value chain logics and the institutions and capacities in the local business system. The combination of inclusive governance and endogenous development informs a grounded debate on roles of development-oriented partnerships. Chapters in this volume draw on multiple strands of economics, sociology, political science, geography and management studies; and for empirical grounding engage in comparative analysis of cases from Latin America, SubSaharan Africa and East and South East Asia. These are combined with processes taking place at a global level, such as the proliferation of standards and the growth of roundtables and multi-stakeholder partnerships. The contributions explore contrasts – between contexts, between industries or commodities/products, and between conceptual frameworks; and the context dependency of development impact necessitates cross-case investigations. This collection will be of interest to scholars in development studies, economics, business studies, as well as to development policy makers.

Total shrimp production in Bangladesh increased from 14 773 tonnes in 1986 to 128 313 ton in 2014. In parallel with contribution of the shrimp sector to the local and national economy of the country, it has caused some negative impacts on local ecosystems. This includes deterioration of soil and water quality, depletion of mangrove forest, decrease in population of local species of fish among others. There have also been some socio-economic consequences on the livelihood patterns of people livin g in coastal areas. At this stage, a paradigm shift is needed away from current shrimp farming practices to a more holistic and integrated approach that accounts for environmental integrity and social cohesion. In this paper, the ongoing measures to improve and streamline environmental performance of shrimp farming in Bangladesh are analyzed and a number of measures are proposed.

The rapid growth in seafood trade in the past three decades has created a truly global market for fish. Written by one of the world’s leading authorities on the subject, this book is the first to explore the structure, function and trends of this international market. It is invaluable for seafood traders, government officials and researchers, and has become the standard reference on the desks of all participants in and observers of the international fish and seafood trade. The first comprehensive updateable treatment of the world wide meat market place Written by one of the world's leading authorities on the seafood industry and its economics Features additional contributions from a range of specialist researchers and practitioners