On Monday, the Fishery Monitoring Branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries’ Southeast Fisheries Science Center released preliminary shrimp landings data from the Gulf of Mexico and the South Atlantic for June 2024.
Changes in NOAA’s reporting methodology over the last two years have limited the utility of these data, as the preliminary figures are frequently incomplete and, even where reported, appear to be significantly understated and are subject to future substantial upward revisions. For example, the June 2024 data released by the agency did not report landings for either Louisiana or South Carolina and the preliminary landing volumes reported for the west coast of Florida (87.6 percent), Mississippi (78.7 percent), Georgia (70.1 percent), and North Carolina (92.8 percent) were massively below the prior twenty-two (22) year historic average for shrimp landings in June for each of these areas.
Nevertheless, the historic monthly landings volume data for periods prior to 2024 included in NOAA’s reporting have now been revised and corrected. These data show that shrimp landings in the Gulf of Mexico in June 2023 (8.8 million pounds) were, by far, the lowest ever recorded in the twenty-two (22) years of monthly data made available by the agency to the Southern Shrimp Alliance. Similarly, the volume of shrimp landed in the South Atlantic in June 2023 (758,000 pounds) was the third-lowest recorded over the 22-year time period.
For the first six months of 2023, the 34.7 million pounds of shrimp landed in the Gulf of Mexico was the second lowest reported since 2002, falling below only the 33.6 million pounds of shrimp landed in the region over the first half of 2020.
Although the data reported for 2024 are currently incomplete and understated, NOAA’s preliminary figures indicate that it is unlikely that there has been significant recovery in landings volumes for the U.S. warmwater shrimp industry this year.
At the same time as landings volumes have been down, NOAA’s reporting demonstrates that ex-vessel prices for Gulf shrimpers collapsed to historic lows (or close to historic lows) for all count sizes in 2023 and have remained at these levels in 2024. NOAA’s reporting of ex-vessel prices in the Gulf in both May and June of 2023 across all count sizes reflect a stunning drop from the ex-vessel prices reported for the same months in 2022. NOAA’s preliminary reporting for both May and June 2024 show ex-vessel prices in the Gulf remaining at around the same levels.
In total, NOAA’s landings and pricing data confirm that the commercial U.S. warmwater shrimp industry has been characterized by both low pricing and low levels of production over the last two years.
Please click the following link to view the Southern Shrimp Alliance’s compilation and summary of June 2002-2024 landings volumes and ex-vessel prices for shrimp in the Gulf of Mexico and the South Atlantic: https://shrimpalliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/June-2024-Landings.pdf
Please click the following link to view the Southern Shrimp Alliance’s compilation and summary of May 2002-2024 landings volumes and ex-vessel prices for shrimp in the Gulf of Mexico and the South Atlantic: https://shrimpalliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/May-2024-Landings.pdf