Opinion American appetite for shrimps spawned an Indian success story. Now, tariffs threaten to undo it all
As the tariffs go into effect, the vast number of Indian farmers who have come to depend on the American market to make a living are preparing for the worst
About 40 per cent of the shrimp consumed in the US comes from India What has 10 legs, two antennae and flesh so sweet, juicy and valuable that it is at the heart of one of the most heated battles in the US’s tariff war against India? From shrimp gumbo and popcorn shrimp to shrimp cocktail and the classic shrimp boil, Americans can’t get enough of this crustacean. It comprises about 90 per cent of the US’s total seafood consumption; the seemingly bottomless appetite for it reportedly drove the restaurant chain Red Lobster to file for bankruptcy thanks to an all-you-can-eat promotion on shrimp. With about 40 per cent of this demand being fed by farmers in India — Andhra Pradesh alone accounting for about 70 per cent of the total output — shrimp has become something of an MVP in US-India trade relations, with significant domestic fallout in both countries.
How did this come to be? As with many other stories of excess demand meeting abundant supply, this one, too, begins in the US. Until the early 20th century, the shrimp consumption in the US was mostly limited to parts of the southern states, with the Louisiana Bayou being a primary source of the crustacean; it was long a popular ingredient in Cajun and Creole cooking. In the rest of the United States, especially along the eastern seaboard, the seafood delicacy of choice was the hugely plentiful oyster, with production peaking in the late 1800s. As overexploitation, pollution along the coastal line and the destruction of the bivalve’s natural habitat began taking a toll on oyster harvests, leading to a near-collapse of the industry at the turn of the century, shrimp started to take its place. The replacement was accelerated with the invention and widespread adoption of refrigeration to transport and preserve seafood. Shrimp was now available, for the first time, across the United States, well on its way towards becoming a national obsession.
This transition is best exemplified in the story of the shrimp cocktail. Tales about the origins of this dish are best served with a pinch of salt, but most historians agree that one of the two central ingredients of the dish, the sweet-and-spicy cocktail sauce, was created in the early 20th century and was used mostly as a condiment for oysters. Since the 1860s at least, one popular way of consuming oyster was by stirring them with whiskey in a glass, along with Worcestershire sauce and hot sauce (not to be confused with the hangover remedy known as Prairie Oyster, which is made with Worcestershire sauce and raw egg yolks; no actual oysters are involved). This “oyster cocktail” evolved closer to its best-known avatar during Prohibition, when restaurants began using their empty glassware to serve a sauce made with ketchup, horseradish, Worcestershire sauce, lime juice and hot sauce as a seafood accompaniment. It was around this time that, as shrimp began eclipsing oyster, the shrimp cocktail was born.
Mechanised harvesting vastly increased the availability of wild-caught shrimp, with commercial shrimp farming from the 1970s inaugurating a new era of obsession with the crustacean. So much so that before too long, the US shrimp industry — increasingly impacted by the rising cost of boats, labour and fuel, as well as stricter environmental and health regulations — started struggling to keep up with the ever-growing demand. Shrimp imported from Southeast Asian and South American producers was soon supplementing the American diet, even as the domestic shrimp industry bemoaned the lack of government support against growing competition.
A combination of factors led to India becoming one of the key exporters of shrimp to the US from the 2010s, among them reports of the use of slave labour on shrimp farms in Thailand, which had been one of the biggest suppliers for the American market until then. But India’s rising contribution to the American seafood platter had been noted at least a decade earlier, in a context similar to the one today. In 2003, an anti-dumping petition was filed by an association of shrimp farmers from eight US states — Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas — against Brazil, China, Ecuador, India, Thailand and Vietnam. The petition claimed that “tainted” farm-raised shrimp from these countries, sold at lower prices, had undercut the domestic industry, putting many shrimp farmers out of business. The Southern Shrimp Alliance, which was the animating spirit behind the petition, declared victory when antidumping duties were imposed in 2005.
Twenty years on, another big cheer has gone up among shrimp farmers in the US following the imposition of historic tariffs on, among other things, shrimp from India. In a July 31 statement welcoming the additional 25 per cent tariff announced by US President Donald Trump (on top of the previously announced 25 per cent), the Southern Shrimp Alliance said, “The large flood of farm-raised Indian shrimp into the US market has undermined dockside prices for American shrimpers with devastating consequences, forcing hundreds of family-owned shrimp boats to remain tied to the docks.”
As the tariffs go into effect, the vast number of Indian farmers who have come to depend on the American obsession with shrimp to make a living and sustain their families are preparing for the worst. Closure is imminent for a large number of farms, as well as peeling, processing and packaging units, even as several exporters pivot towards new markets and expand their footprint in existing ones like Japan, China and the UK. China, where appetites are quickly catching up with the US, may indeed hold the key to the future; Indonesia has already announced a strategic shift to the Chinese market in order to mitigate losses arising out of US tariffs (19 per cent). In India, in the meantime, an entire industry — and lakhs of livelihoods — remains in troubled waters.
pooja.pillai@expressindia.com
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