Do you know where your shrimp comes from?
Posted on 23. Dec, 2008 by Mikey Leung in Food, Responsible Travel, Sundarbans
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If not, maybe you should find out. “White Gold”, as Swedish NGO the Swallows NGO has termed shrimp from Bangladesh, is one of the nation’s most environmentally threatening products.
This is because the shrimp farms require saline water. In a bid to increase production for the lucrative product, producers have forcibly taken land from poor villagers, according to the ‘Voices from Paikgacha’ short film produced by Gazi Mahtab Hassan and Katrin Aidnell. The film was part of a photo exhibition held earlier this year in Sweden and several other countries. A PDF containing photos from the exhibition is available by clicking here.
Increased demand for shrimp could result in great potential for land destruction, especially with respect to Sundarban, the world’s largest mangrove forest and home of the Royal Bengal Tiger. Because the land is inundated with salt as a result of shrimp farming, the surrounding landscape becomes infertile in a matter of two decades.
The decision of what to eat remains squarely with travellers. But because of this destructive practice, we recommend that travellers avoid eating prawns or shrimps in the country and by doing so, decrease demand for this environmentally harmful product.
2 Responses to “Do you know where your shrimp comes from?”
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Great question Rezwan.
I believe that if we don’t inform the consumers, there will never be an incentive for change. The first priority, is, as you say, the price. So we must change people’s priorities, which is probably a much tougher task but a necessary one.
Like it or not, the people who earn the profits from shrimp farming are rarely the farmers themselves. Certainly, improved farming technology and QC mechanisms would do a lot for the production of shrimp in Bangladesh, for the quality and for the farmers themselves. But in a country where the majority of citizens are not able to demand their rights, I believe that we should not continue to reward the people who employ these farmers with our business.
-Mikey
“But because of this destructive practice, we recommend that travelers avoid eating prawns or shrimps in the country and by doing so, decrease demand for this environmentally harmful product.”
This is not feasible in a way that the first priority to many people is the price.
And I think this will not hit the nail in the right areas as it will be a collective punishment for those farmers who are not engaged in those malpractices.
Rather initiatives should be taken to introduce tougher quality controls by the buyers, site inspections, force the government for environmental certificates etc.
Technology should also be improved to farm shrimps in low salinity conditions.
Similar sort of allegations were made against Shrimp farming in Thailand and Nigeria. How can you be sure which shrimps on the shelf are farmed in a environmentally harmful way?