Shrimp Culture in Myanmar
Shrimp culture is a recent development in Myanmar compared with some other Southeast Asian countries. It has, however, tremendous potential if modem and cautious management techniques are applied.
Myanmar presents many attractive advantages for foreign investors, including land availability and relatively low labour cost. However, many problems remain unsolved: scarcity of technical information, lack of trained personnel, and the fact that much of the farming has to be done at an extensive level.
Myanmar has extensive mangrove forests, 382,032 ha, distributed in Ayeyarwady (46.4%), Tanintharyi (36.7%) and Rakhine (16.9%). But there ahs been substantial reduction of forest cover in all areas over the years mainly attributed to the demand for fuelwood/charcoal production.
Neither intensive or semi-intensive shrimp farming has developed, and Myanmar is fortunate to have learned from the mistakes of shrimp producing countries like Thailand and the Philippines. But there are plans to develop 40,000 ha of ponds for semi-intensive shrimp culture because the government considers shrimp a potentially large generator of foreign exchange (US$400-500 million).
As yet, shrimp farmers still practice the traditional, extensive method. About 12,000 ha are operated in Rakhine state, near the border of Bangladesh. The yields are very low, about 100 kg per ha per year. Fish culture of seabass, grouper, milkfish and mullet is still in pilot-scale.
At present, there is no well-developed arrangement for managing the country's coastal and marine zone. Much of Myanmar's coastline is sparsely populated and features natural ecosystems which have suffered relatively little exploitation except in Ayeyarwady Delta.
In the future, integrated coastal zone management approaches will be considered in establishing the policy, planning and regulatory framework to ensure that the coastal zone is managed sustainably.