Krabi shrimp farmers call for government support as they face high production costs with low market prices of production.

Andaman News NBT (VHF dial) at 8.30am & local Cable TV channel 1 + maybe FM90.5 Radio Thailand 6pm, broadcast to Phang Nga, Krabi & Phuket provinces, & possibly FM108 Mazz Radio 7.30pm in Phuket, Thursday 5 June 2008 & http://thainews.prd.go.th/newsenglish/ Contact [email protected]

The continued fuel price hikes, but declines in market shrimp prices are forcing the Krabi shrimp farmers to cry out for government assistance. The provincial Shrimp farmers’ Club chairman Pokklong Koedsuk states that the farmers are now facing big loss due to production costs of fuel and other materials while the shrimp prices are low. The factors forced 50% of the farmers to cease their operations. He stressed that there are only 250 shrimp farms out of 500 now and foresees the Krabi shrimp export amount to decline to 20,000 million tons this year, from 25,000 million tons from the previous year. This would result in a decrease of revenue from 4,000 million baht to around 2,000 million baht. The market price for 60 per kilogram shrimp compared to cost at 90 baht per kilo which the farmers cannot shoulder, he said. The local shrimp farmers then called for government support in terms of soft loan programs to ease their burdens.

Source: National News bureau

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He stressed that there are only 250 shrimp farms out of 500 now and foresees the Krabi shrimp export amount to decline to 20,000 million tons this year, from 25,000 million tons from the previous year.

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Something seems amiss with those figures ,that is 100 million tonnes per farm.

Then again,I am probably wrong ,as a graph I looked at suggests the total shrimp exports at over 250,000 million tonnes per year. Thats a lot of shrimp.