| The current shrimp crisis will be the focus of a Shrimp Summit which will be held in Cameron. The meeting will take place in the Cameron Courtroom on September 16, 2009 beginning at 6:00 p.m. The meeting is sponsored by the LSU AgCenter/Sea Grant program, and features representatives from the Louisiana Recovery Authority, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, Integrated Marine Systems, Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board and the Cameron Parish Police Jury Office of Economic Development.
Since the early 1980s, global production of shrimp has increased dramatically, especially aquaculture produced shrimp. World production (both aquaculture and wild capture) of shrimp expanded from 3.4 billion pounds in 1980 to 13.4 billion pounds in 2005. The increases in production were particularly pronounced in the mid to late 1990s. This worldwide increased production translates into an average increase of over 400 million pounds annually since the 1980s. To put this into perspective, Louisiana’s average annual shrimp production is approximately 100 million pounds.
The United States is the largest importer of shrimp in the world. This, along with a decline in world market price has caused the price paid to U.S. shrimp harvesters to drop since the 1980s (real dockside prices-deflated). The combination of reduced prices, increased fuel and supply costs and the current economic situation has caused significant hardship to the shrimp industry.
The Shrimp Summit will cover several aspects of the current crisis including, recent history and trends in the shrimp industry, world shrimp production and the global economy, long term plans and short term plans for the industry as well as local projects to stabilize the shrimp industry.
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