Shrimp farming — unproductive lands put to use

Building on the success of the 100-acre pilot shrimp farming, the Punjab Government has committed to scaling up the initiative to 100,000 acres, with an ambitious export target of $1 billion annually in the $40bn global shrimp market. The initiative marks a critical transformation in Pakistan’s aquaculture landscape, where saline soil (unproductive lands) will be redirected toward high-value, labour-intensive shrimp farming.

Pakistan holds immense potential in aquaculture — a key sub-sector of the agriculture sector — offering vast opportunities for economic growth, job creation, enhanced food security, and exports. Shrimp farming in Pakistan is almost at the embryonic stage, and the country continues to fall short of realising its potential despite having extensive brackish water resources, favourable agro-climatic conditions, and strong global demand. Currently, Pakistan shrimp exports amount to approximately $78 million (HS Code 030613, as of 2022), in stark contrast to India, which captures roughly $5bn of the global market share.

Not only in Punjab but also in the coastal regions of Balochistan and Sindh, there are millions of acres of non-productive saline lands that can be used for large-scale commercial shrimp farming. However, realising this potential requires an enabling policy and comprehensive strategy paired with value chain development.

The government’s longstanding focus on traditional field crops, which has shaped Pakistan’s agricultural policy for the past 77 years, successfully met the nation’s objectives in the past. However, this approach now requires realignment — a shift from traditional to non-traditional products — to address emerging challenges posed by population explosion, shrinking per capita land, and dwindling water resources.

Active government and private sector engagement can turn inefficient and costly shrimp farming into a lucrative industry

Moreover, Pakistan’s agriculture sector — the largest contributor to the country’s employment with a 37 per cent share — is nearing its employment generation limit due to growing mechanisation and stagnant land expansion. Therefore, the country needs to place emphasis on non-traditional avenues, like shrimp farming, to provide self and wage employment to about 3m youths entering the job market every year, as per the Labour Force Survey 2020-21.

Previously, the federal and provincial governments rolled out various projects to promote non-traditional products like olive plantation, floriculture, oil palm plantation etc. Unfortunately, these efforts were predominantly production-centered, altogether neglecting the development of crucial upstream and downstream segments of the value chain. Value addition and export marketing, particularly those that serve as catalysts for large-scale expansion, have largely been missing.

The government’s approach has two major flaws. First, the various segments of the agricultural produce value chain fall under the jurisdiction of multiple departments and ministries in Pakistan. Rather than designing and implementing projects as collaborative efforts involving all relevant entities as co-implementers, the projects are treated as standalone initiatives. As a result, projects in the agriculture, livestock, and fisheries sectors tend to focus predominately on production, which becomes a recipe for failure.

Second, the government wrongly assumes during the design of several projects that increasing the production of certain agricultural products would automatically attract private sector investment in agro-inputs, cold chains (temperature-controlled vehicles and cold storages), processing, value addition, and export businesses. However, the private sector remains hesitant to invest until and unless assured of a sufficient scale along with a reasonable return.

Meanwhile, due to underdeveloped value chains, farmers often face challenges in cost-effective input procurements as well as selling their produce at a fair price, so they, in turn, start switching to other options, ultimately undermining the government’s efforts.

Thus far, despite several federal and provincial government-funded interventions in shrimp farming, Pakistan has failed to establish even a single hatchery that can provide seed to private-sector farmers. As a result, seed is being imported from Thailand or Vietnam, which has become a major obstacle to the growth of shrimp farming.

Similarly, feed is not produced locally, forcing farmers to rely on costly imports. Additionally, there is a lack of local expertise in shrimp farming operations; therefore, farmers have to hire expensive foreign consultants to control the high mortality and improve yields — two significant challenges.

Likewise, a lack of end-to-end cold chain and inadequate processing and value-added facilities compliant with international food safety standards pose further challenges to the development of shrimp farming. Most importantly, value chain players need government support and handholding to establish export linkages to sell fresh, canned, and frozen shrimps.

To turn the successful pilot into a commercial success, the Punjab government must avoid repeating the mistakes of past shrimp farming initiatives undertaken in Punjab, Balochistan, and Sindh. By drawing on lessons learned, the government should adopt an approach that focuses on developing all segments of the value chain simultaneously.

This can be achieved by actively engaging the private sector (both investors and entrepreneurs) by offering strategic incentives, and by implementing key interventions under a public-private partnership model — publicly funded and privately executed — rather than leaving it entirely to the private sector.

Additionally, the Punjab government must ensure that all relevant departments and ministries are fully engaged as active partners and not facilitators. Without these measures, scaling up shrimp farming will remain a pipe dream, much like the previous initiatives.

Khalid Wattoo is a farmer and a development professional, and Dr Waqar Ahmad is a former Associate Professor at the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, October 7th, 2024