Strategies for helping farmed shrimp (Rethink Priorities)

Summary

Shrimp production: industry numbers, trends, and practices

• Shrimp aquaculture can be bad for animals, humans, and the environment
  • At any given time, shrimp are the most numerous farmed animal (Figure 1)

Figure 1: Estimated numbers of farmed shrimp, insects, fishes, and chickens alive on farms at any time. Data from Waldhorn and Autric (2023).

• Animals like fish are caught and farmed to feed farmed shrimp, increasing the welfare effects of shrimp farming
• The shrimp farming industry contributes to carbon emissions, antimicrobial resistance, food safety, and human labor and rights issues
• Production and consumption are concentrated in a handful of countries
  • China, Ecuador, Viet Nam, India and Indonesia are top producer countries
  • China is also a top importer, alongside the US, Japan, Spain, and France

Figure 2: Per capita shrimp supply vs per capita GDP. Note both axes are logarithmic. Supply data from own analysis of FAO (2024) data for 2022, and GDP data from Our World in Data’s analysis of seafood consumption and GDP.

• Demand for shrimp is increasing

  • As the world population grows, so will shrimp consumption
  • Economic growth also correlates with increased shrimp consumption (Figure 2)

• To meet demand, the industry is adopting more intensive practices

  • Intensive farms use higher stocking densities, presenting new welfare threats
  • Because the most intensive farms can be located inland and in greenhouses, farms could open in new countries that are otherwise too cold for aquaculture

• Vegan or diet-change advocacy on only environmental grounds could harm shrimp welfare in the long term by causing people to shift from eating larger-bodied animals, like cattle, to eating shrimp, increasing the overall number of farmed animals

Shrimp advocacy: current state, opportunities, and bottlenecks

• In the past few years, a handful of organizations have worked to reduce shrimp suffering

  • Policy advocacy led to the inclusion of decapod crustaceans in the UK Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022, legally recognizing them as sentient
  • Retailer outreach has gained traction in the UK and Netherlands with several companies becoming increasingly aware of growing public concern for crustacean welfare
    • At least six retailers in the UK and Netherlands have implemented some of the world’s first crustacean welfare policies
    • All of these policies commit to eliminating eyestalk ablation and half also plan to electrically stun all shrimp in their supply chains
  • Groups are working with producers to improve their practices, resulting in several agreements to electrically stun shrimp prior to slaughter, protocols to measure on-farm welfare, and training for farmers to monitor and improve their pond conditions
  • Some welfare standards are now included in certification schemes, with several prohibiting eyestalk ablation

• More progress can be made:

  • Add shrimp welfare provisions, such as banning eyestalk ablation and enforcing humane slaughter, to aquaculture certification schemes (similar to certifying eggs as “free-range”)
  • Encourage more retailers, especially in countries that import a lot of shrimp, to source from higher-welfare farms (similar to movement-wide efforts on cage-free eggs)—for now, this means farms that do not source from eyestalk-ablated broodstock and that humanely slaughter shrimp
  • Advocate for shrimp to be protected under animal welfare legislation—only a handful of countries have any mention of decapod crustaceans in animal welfare protections, and even fewer specifically apply to shrimp
  • Develop alternative foods that taste like shrimp to help reduce demand for farmed shrimp

• To meaningfully help farmed shrimp, key bottlenecks need to be overcome:

  • A small scientific evidence base about shrimp’s needs means several questions remain unanswered, like what level of crowding impedes their welfare and what temperatures and enrichments they prefer

• The biggest constraint to improving farmed shrimp lives right now is funding for the movement. Supporting shrimp work right now could provide much-needed stability to this nascent work and significantly increase the chances of the movement taking on critical momentum for these animals.

• We believe that supporting shrimp welfare is currently one of the largest opportunities for animal funders to have the greatest marginal impact

• Despite these constraints, many options for helping shrimp remain on the table. Advocates and funders should apply the precautionary principle and act on existing evidence to help shrimp sooner rather than later.

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