Shrimp is the most consumed seafood in America. The average American eats about 4.1 lbs. of it every year. Shrimp can be made into innumerable delectable dishes from shrimp cocktail to shrimp gumbo to coconut shrimp or added to pasta or salad. Many people believe that shrimp is healthy because it is low in calories and saturated fat and high in minerals and antioxidants.
Shrimp, however, can also be a very unsustainable food.
To start, the social and environmental impacts of shrimp production is very difficult to trace since over “40 species of shrimp are allowed to be labeled and sold as just ‘shrimp’ in the U.S, while only seven types require a more specific name at the point of sale." In many cases, packages of shrimp don’t even include where it was from or whether it was farmed or wild-caught. According to a study done by Oceana, less than 1% of restaurants even indicate whether their shrimp is farm-raised or wild caught and 30% of shrimp products sold in grocery stores do not indicate where it was caught or farmed.
Farmed shrimp must be sustainable, right? Wrong. The majority of farmed shrimp comes from developing counties in the tropics such as Bangladesh, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam. These farms grow shrimp in ponds of water treated with an array of antibiotics and pesticides, some of which are banned in the U.S. The effluent water from these ponds are often released into local waters without treatment. Mangrove forests, which are biologically diverse ecosystems and essential to reducing the impacts of coastal storms, are often cut down to build shrimp farms.
As much as 38% mangrove deforestation is attributed to shrimp aquaculture. Wild-caught shrimp is often equally as harmful. Wild shrimp are generally caught in trawls that drag across the ocean floor, ripping apart habitats. Bycatch is another major issue with trawling. It is estimated that for every pound of shrimp caught, 5 to 20 pounds of other species, ranging sharks to sea turtles to bottom-dwelling fish, are also caught. Much of that bycatch is simply tossed back into the ocean dead, used as bait or converted to pet food.
Another big issue with shrimp, specifically peeled shrimp, is the way in which they are processed. In a 2015 investigation conducted by AP, thousands of enslaved people in Thailand were found working in shrimp processing plants, peeling shrimp for up to 16 hours for little pay. Among those workers were children, “including a girl so tiny she had to stand on a stool to reach the peeling table.” These enslaved workers are generally migrants living in poverty and debt who are tricked by brokers who offer them higher wages and then locked into processing plants for years.
While working conditions and regulations have been improving over the last few years, it is still inevitable that human trafficking is still occurring in shrimp processing industry since the demand for cheap peeled shrimp is still soaring, and the labor regulations in these developing countries are poorly enforced.
What can you do to improve the environmental and social sustainability of shrimp production? You can start by consuming less of it and demanding seafood companies, local grocery stores, and restaurants to provide labeling of species and origin the shrimp that they are selling or serving. When buying shrimp (or any seafood), use the Seafood Watch app made by the Monterey Bay Aquarium to help you make informed decisions.
