Low Prices - What does the future hold?

By Tony Ostrowski. The stress of low prices is now being shared by all industry sectors. The regulations being imposed on the seafood industry will change the face of shrimp buying and selling in this country. Traceability will add cost to all levels of the industry, including farmers who may be indemnified
by buyers.
Even domestic shrimp will need the label “Product of USA,” if the regulations remain as currently written. Countries and even certain producers will begin to try to differentiate quality of shrimp, as some put it, “like we do wines, from country and even region.”
But despite some of the costs, it can be a great opportunity and springboard for US shrimp farmers to promote their specific brand of shrimp and the ad-
vantages of a domestic product.
The US is the largest shrimp market in the world and domestically farmed shrimp offer consumers the freshest farm-to-market product. They are grown under the strictest health and environmental regulations anywhere in the
world.
And what about prices? Partly because demand for shrimp in developing countries like Asia has increased in response to the Avian flu virus, prices have already been on the upswing.
It is expected that by December 2004 prices will be higher as a result of the tightening supply, good news for our domestic harvest season. After that, no one can predict. As Wally Stevens pointed out, there have been many examples in previous anti-dumping legislation where price has even decreased further. For our domestic farming industry, we need to take this knowledge and plan appropriately and proactively for the new era we most
definitely are entering.