Shrimp farming smallholders in Sarawak: Prospect of marine fisheries department’s adopted shrimp farmers / Kushairi Rashid

This project paper attempts to study the prospect of Marine Fisheries Department's adopted shrimp farmers. The shrimp aquaculture industry is a relatively new industry in Sarawak with most shrimp farmers are relatively new in their various involveinent. The objectives of this study is therefore to find out whether the adopted shrimp farmers woukd be successful in their undertakings considering the various problems which they would encounter, such as operational technical problems and possibly high operating cost, low price etc. Shrimp farming is also facing the possible outbreak of disease that could have affected the farm as it is dealing with living organism. It was noted from the study that most farmers have adhered to the guidelines provided under the Code of Practices in Aquaculture with regard to stocking density rate, feeding management water management etc. The findings of the study also show that most adopted farmers used personal savings and credit fecilities from suppliers as an intial capital and very few bas obtained loans from financial institutions. 80 % of the farmers had no experience in shrimp farming when they first started.