I’m also confused about this. I found a paper[1] that estimates the annual amount of shrimp paste produced in China at 40,000 tons, and says that China is the largest shrimp paste producer in the world. The spreadsheet states that ~251,093 tons of A. japonicus were caught in the wild in 2020, so depending on what proportion of shrimp paste is produced in China[2] and how many tons of shrimp are needed to make one ton of shrimp paste, this could be accurate?
I did a cursory search for information about shrimp paste production in other countries and couldn’t find any numbers, but I didn’t look very hard and it’s possible you could find more accurate information.
I think there’s pretty broad agreement that it is indeed the case that most wild-caught shrimp are being turned into shrimp paste. The recent SWP post has some discussion.
For what it’s worth, the 40,000 ton number is also present in some other sources, but it’s hard for me to trace it back further than that due to language barriers. Since making shrimp paste involves drying the shrimp, it seems to me that the largest country manufacturing 40000 tons of paste could be consistent with 251000 tons of A. japonicus being caught.
I’m also confused about this. I found a paper[1] that estimates the annual amount of shrimp paste produced in China at 40,000 tons, and says that China is the largest shrimp paste producer in the world. The spreadsheet states that ~251,093 tons of A. japonicus were caught in the wild in 2020, so depending on what proportion of shrimp paste is produced in China[2] and how many tons of shrimp are needed to make one ton of shrimp paste, this could be accurate?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0023643822010313 .
I have low confidence in this estimate because I looked at the paper it’s citing and don’t see that number anywhere in there.
I did a cursory search for information about shrimp paste production in other countries and couldn’t find any numbers, but I didn’t look very hard and it’s possible you could find more accurate information.
I think there’s pretty broad agreement that it is indeed the case that most wild-caught shrimp are being turned into shrimp paste. The recent SWP post has some discussion.
For what it’s worth, the 40,000 ton number is also present in some other sources, but it’s hard for me to trace it back further than that due to language barriers. Since making shrimp paste involves drying the shrimp, it seems to me that the largest country manufacturing 40000 tons of paste could be consistent with 251000 tons of A. japonicus being caught.