Aquaculture & Fisheries

Biography

Biography: Shahreza Md Sheriff

Abstract

Giant freshwater prawn, Macrobrachium rosenbergii output from pond production has been on a declining phase for the last few years because of several issues concerning farm production and marketing. Despite some innovative farming methods like all male monosex culture adopted by various farmers towards achieving the peak output level, recurrence of several episodes of diseases together with deteriorated water quality and marketing problems adversely affected the sector. Farming of M. rosenbergii gained prominence in the late 1990s as the demand for prawns was increasingly felt as an alternative to the tiger shrimp, Penaeus monodon, the farming of which had suffered heavy losses from viral epidemics, and many legal regulations restricting production. The advantage of M. rosenbergii farming in promoting rural livelihood and food security is well known. The relatively less intensive farming operations and low stocking densities used, besides lower costs of production compared to marine shrimps enable this prawn to be a good choice for sustaining rural populations. Apart from the diseases, water quality and marketing issues, the recent introduction of the whiteleg shrimp, Litopenaeus vannamei into the market is also believed to have affected the prospects of M. rosenbergii because farmers tend to focus on the former as a more profitable enterprise and its farming is being expanded even to freshwater areas. Because the farming areas have reduced very much and many hatcheries have diverted to production of P. monodon and L. vannamei, there is an increased demand for the M. rosenbergii seed for farming in the remaining culture areas, although production issues in the hatcheries still remain unresolved. Thus, a special session to discuss about M. rosenbergii aquaculture and fisheries with specific objectives is to be proposed during this coming Aquaculture Summit 2016. This proposed session will specifically focused on three objectives; i) to form an international research networking group on M. rosenbergii, ii) to discuss recent findings and further research directions on M. rosenbergii and iii) to formulated a purposed international research grant working on M. rosenbergii culture. The theme for this special session is “Giant Freshwater Prawn networking, farming innovation and stock conservation”. Scientists, researchers, industry practitioners and academicians related to M. rosenbergii are expected to attend this proposed session.