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Poor Shrimp Landings Reported for July

Yesterday, the Fishery Monitoring Branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries’ Southeast Fisheries Science Center released shrimp landings data from the Gulf of Mexico for July 2019.

NOAA reported that shrimp landings in the Gulf last month (7.0 million pounds) were significantly below those in July 2018 and July 2017 (7.9 and 8.0 million pounds, respectively). Commercial shrimp landings last month were 37.8 percent below the prior seventeen-year historic average of 11.3 million pounds for July.

Just 1.6 million pounds of shrimp was reported as landed in the state of Louisiana, the third lowest volume for the state for a July in the last eighteen years. All told, landings in Louisiana were 62.1 percent below the prior seventeen-year historic average of 4.2 million pounds in July.

In Mississippi, only 415,000 pounds of shrimp were reported as landed, the second lowest total reported for any July from that state in the last eighteen years.

For the year, landings of shrimp in Louisiana and the west coast of Florida are at the lowest levels they have ever been through the first seven months. Outside of 2010, the landings reported in Mississippi for the year are the lowest they have been in the past eighteen years. Shrimp harvests at historical levels in Texas and significantly above historical levels in Alabama have somewhat offset the low numbers from the rest of the Gulf, but landings in the region, at 35.6 million pounds, are the second lowest volume reported in the last eighteen years.

Last month, NOAA reported ex-vessel prices for four of six count sizes of shrimp landed in the eastern Gulf (west coast of Florida) and five of six count sizes of shrimp landed in the northern

Gulf (Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi). In the northern Gulf and western Gulf, the ex-vessel prices showed a large divergence between prices for large shrimp (U15) and all other shrimp. In the western Gulf, prices for U15 size shrimp were the highest reported for any July (not adjusting for inflation) in the nineteen-year database maintained by the Southern Shrimp Alliance.

NOAA’s monthly reporting of shrimp landings in the Gulf of Mexico continues to include the following disclaimer:

“BE ADVISED THAT THE SUMMARIES IN THIS REPORT ARE COLLECTED OR ESTIMATED BY THE FEDERAL PORT AGENTS AND MAY NOT REFLECT THE LANDINGS FROM THE STATES”

As previously noted, the numbers reported – and the ex-vessel prices that have not been reported – over the last several months by NOAA appear to indicate that port agents may have been unable to collect information in the same manner as they have done historically.

Please click the following link to view SSA’s compilation and summary of July 2002-2019 Shrimp Landings and Ex-Vessel Prices for July 2001-2019: https://shrimpalliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/July-2019-Landings.pdf

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