1 NOVEMBER 1998
SHRIMP CULTURE IN PANAMA: A SUCCESS STORY CONTINUES
All shrimp farms in Panama are located on the Pacific coast, mainly concentrated around the Bays of Parita (Cocle Province) and Chame (Panama Province). By 1997 the country's pond area had doubled to approximately 7,000 ha, and by the summer of 1998 the area will have grown close to 9,000 ha of growout ponds, divided among 40 farms or so.
For many years Panama has been considered an important center for the production of shrimp larvae. Among the reasons for this are that the country had access to the technology before other countries in the region, and it was relatively easy to collect both wild shrimp broodstock and marine polychaetes that are very important as broodstock maturation feed. In addition, the country's geographic location and numerous commercial flights facilitate quick transport of larvae to most shrimp producing countries in the region.
Larval shrimp production in Panama has also been increasing due to the growing demand for Panamanian larvae abroad, because of its high degree of resistance to disease including Taura Syndrome. Panama currently has 11 shrimp larval facilities, five of which have both maturation and larviculture, while three do only maturation and three do only larviculture. In 1997 these 11 laboratories produced around 14.3 billion nauplii and 1.744 billion postlarvae. The main nauplii producer was Farallon Aquaculture, S.A. with 6 billion nauplii. Local postlarvae demand was 1.2 billion, and the remaining 544 million postlarvae were exported. More than 50% of the nauplii production was exported, making Panama the largest nauplii exporter in the Americas. In 1998 nauplii and postlarvae production are growing by an estimated 20% compared to 1997, and there are other laboratories under construction which will increase production output by an additional 20 to 30% by the end of 1999. The result obtained with Panamanian seedstock in other countries, mostly Panama, Ecuador, Honduras and Nicaragua, are very superior to those obtained with wild postlarvae or seedstock of other origin. This has resulted in a high demand for Panamanian seedstock.
The production cycles typically begin in early March and run through late December. Efficient farms can produce 2 to 2.5 cycles per year, while others produce 1.5 to 2 cycles. Mean pond water temperature during the rainy season is 28 C and mean salinity is 15 ppt. As mentioned earlier, stocking densities have been increasing from around 8 to about 16 PL/m^2, mainly due to better production technology and pond management procedures. In 1997 approximately 86 million wild postlarvae were used by Panama's farms; about 70% of these were P. stylirostris. Wild P. vannamei postlarvae are not abundant along Panama's coastline, and this is the reason the country's farms have not depended on wild larvae for their operations. Instead, this has stimulated the rapid development of cutting-edge maturation and larviculture technology which are the backbone of Panama's larval and shrimp farming industry, and which also supports farms in many other countries of the region.
(excerpts from article by D.E. Jory in Aquaculture Magazine, July/August 1998, Vol. 24, No. 4: 91-99)