WHY DID I CHOOSE MACROBRACHIUM ROSENBERGII? Knowing my market.

WHY DID I CHOOSE MACROBRACHIUM ROSENBERGII? Knowing my market.

Sometimes I do meet people who asked me, why do I pick Macrobrachium Rosenbergii (Giant Freshwater Prawn) as species of choice for hatchery production. Well… the answer is pretty straightforward actually. People pay premium price for what they want. Just like iPhone. A person can have a working iPhone but they’ll still upgrade to newer iPhone given that they have the access to fund. Because new iPhone is the items that they want. Not what they need. Meanwhile for food, though the numbers of people who’re health conscious are increasing, majority still won’t justify spending extra for locally produced & more sustainable food. They pay little for what they need. Pricing is always the first thing people will use to justify purchases followed by taste. Giant Freshwater Prawn in Malaysia, belong in the wants market.

Why is that so?

The demand for locally produced Giant Freshwater Prawn is mainly from fee fishing ponds. Giant Freshwater Prawn fee fishing have attracted their own fan and have become a fun recreational activity. When there’s fee fishing, there’s a requirement for live prawn. This is where it gets interesting.

Malaysia is situated at the heart of South East Asia (SEA). Whereby many countries in this region enjoys good tropical climate. A climate that’s probably the most comfortable and most productive in terms of food production for us homo sapiens. However, being at the heart of the tropics also poses its own challenge for aquaculture venture. Competition from cheap imports. Most neighbouring country around Malaysia enjoys lower cost of productions (lands, labours, feeds, ferts, etc). $300 minimum salary in Malaysia is nothing. $300 somewhere else in SEA means something. Competition is so fierce that I go by the saying “If it can be imported dead, the aquaculture venture can be dead anytime”.

Closest country to Malaysia that’re producing Giant Freshwater Prawn is Thailand. Producing around 20000++ MT annually compared to Malaysia which is currently in the range of 309 MT annually (2016). Some will say “that means someone can disrupt the market by importing cheaper Thailand giant prawn”. Well… most Thailand farms are located in central floodplain area of Thailand (Supanbhuri, Nakhorn Pathom, & Ratchaburi provinces). All these locations are more than 1500 kilometres away from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This makes land transportation of live adult prawn unviable (expensive + long period of transportation leading to cannibalism, stress, and eventually, death). Leading to demands for locally produced prawn.

There have been efforts to imports postlarvae (baby prawn) from neighbouring country to help fulfil local demands. But, farmers have been complaining about mass mortality just after pond stocking. And still, transportation poses major hurdles for success. Malaysia once reach a peak of 1338 MT annual production in 2000. Then everything begins to drop to current level due to lacks of quality juvenile/seeds/PL. There’s a production gaps of 1000 MT if we compare production in 2016 vs 2000. Of course some of the ponds in year 2000 are converted to something else. However, there’s still potential to convert rice fields into aquaculture ponds. As civilisation moves towards urbanisation, more lands are going to be freed from human occupation and opens path for remaining rural communities to expand agriculture/aquaculture activities.

What’s is the for the future of Giant Freshwater Prawn. One thing that I see is genetic improvements. Technology such as All - Males and All – Females are interesting as they can potentially increase yield. Farmers have been showing interest and willing to pay premium prices for their juveniles. However, it’ll still need improvements as there are complaints from people who’ve purchased those juveniles. Farming technology will still be dominated by pond aquaculture. Simply because the cannibalistic behaviour of Giant Prawn requires them to require large area. But hatchery & nursery production can utilise newer tech such as monitoring system, auto feeder, and water treatment system such as Recirculating Aquaculture System (RAS) to further conserve water and moves hatchery further inland. Closer to the grow out farms. A kilo of cheap commodity fish waste and a kilo of expensive juvenile prawn waste will require just about the same CAPEX & OPEX to treat the water. There’s of course slightly higher cost for juvenile due to different trophic requirements of the organism. High juvenile prices will probably justify hatchery operators to invest in RAS system in the future.

I think, that’s all I have to say. If in any way my view is wrong, please correct me. I’ll highly appreciate the guidance. Entrepreneurship is definitely a new thing to me. I’m a noob in this field. Again. I thank all the wonderful people that have been guiding me throughout this journey. I'll never be here without all of you. And i forgot to add a happy news. It's definitely very exciting that even though Nimble Aqua have not yet enter production phase (repair on water holding tank is going on), we've already receive interest and order from 4 grow out farms.