Data for commercial landings in the Gulf of Mexico and the South Atlantic for calendar year 2019 have now been made available by the Gulf State Fisheries Information Network of the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission and the Atlantic Coastal Cooperative Statistics Program.
These data show that the volume and value of warmwater shrimp landed in 2019 fell significantly from 2018. The total value of warmwater shrimp harvested in the United States dropped from $455.3 million in 2018 to $428.6 million in 2019, while the volume of shrimp landed fell from 252.4 million pounds (live weight) in 2018 to 215.2 million pounds in 2019.
Within the totals, experiences varied significantly by state. In Texas, the total volume of shrimp landed last year – 60.2 million pounds (live weight) – was the lowest amount of shrimp reported as harvested in that state over the last twenty years. For both Louisiana (81.4 million pounds (live weight)) and Mississippi (6.9 million pounds (live weight)), the state totals were the second lowest annual figures reported over the last two decades. At the same time, the landings volume in Florida (30.7 million pounds (live weight)) was the third highest annual total reported since 2000, while the landings volume in Alabama was the sixth highest annual amount in the last twenty years.
The significant decline in the value of warmwater shrimp harvested in the Gulf of Mexico last year – a drop of $36.2 million – was offset, in part, by an increase in the value of warmwater shrimp harvested in the South Atlantic of $9.4 million from 2018 to 2019.
Please click the following link to view SSA’s compilation and summary of the volumes and value of warmwater shrimp landed in the United States between 2000 and 2019: https://shrimpalliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Warmwater.pdf