How Ecuador ate our shrimp for breakfast

- ET article mentions "In 2021, it was reported that about 12,000 containers with 16 tonnes of shrimps in each (roughly worth Rs 1,200 crore) from India were stranded at Chinese ports"

Thus, while India was a leading exporter, it suffered massive losses because "China suspected traces of coronavirus on the packages of frozen shrimps. These exports were coming from 50 Indian companies. In December 2020, China suspended shrimp imports from 110 processing units; 99 were in India"

While this could have been a totally political move by China, joining the dots across multiple case facts we can see how Ecuador might have taken the lead:-

1. China feared traces of coronavirus - Indian exporters can't assuage the fears as there are multiple fragmented small players in the value chain while Ecuador has consolidated large processing and shipping plants through which they can show how the shrimp got processed at each step of the value chain and what kept is safe from the virus!

2. "Ecuadorian cultivators embrace automation easily. They follow a western style of farming where they manage farms with tablets in hand. They market traceability — which shrimp is coming from which pond..." - these practices are the need of the hour and could have come in handy when China alleged our shipments brought Corona risk

The bottom line is the suspension on 99 Indian plants got lifted this Feb and as Aquaconnect CEO Rajamanohar (Raj) lays stress on the need to deploy IoT-based systems, there is a strong need to revamp the existing infrastructure and integrate the value chain via the latest digital practices to ensure our exporters remain competitive with the international market