Kolkata, India: Buddhadeb Pradhan, a shrimp farmer in Nandigram in the West Bengal state in eastern India, has taken a major risk by cultivating a second shrimp crop within weeks of harvesting the first cycle.But he needs the money and is willing to risk a diseased crop, a common occurrence when there are two harvesting cycles in a pond in the same year.He was partly pushed into making that decision because of the falling price of the shrimp on account of the tariffs imposed on India by United States President Donald Trump.“The falling prices of the shrimp have me stressing if I can recover my investment of 300,000 rupees [$3,380],” he told Al Jazeera.India is the world’s second-largest producer of shrimp – predominantly for export – after Ecuador. In the financial year ending in March 2025, it sent $5bn of frozen shrimp globally, with the US accounting for about 48 percent of its sales.It produces two commercial varieties of marine and freshwater shrimp, black tiger and Pacific whiteleg, popularly known as vannamei (Litopenaeus vannamei).India’s shrimp production stood at 1.1 million tonnes, predominantly vannamei, but also 5 percent black tiger, in the financial year ending March 2024, as per the latest data available.India has two distinctive shrimp cycles of vannamei, starting from February to June and then …
