Doctoral Dissertation Research: Small-Scale Shrimp Production in the Age of Industrial Aquaculture

这项研究项目调查虾病的出现如何影响虾生产者和全球虾生产网络。它考察了环境条件如何与社会政治因素和发展政策相互作用，以影响世界上最有价值的海产品的生产。虾病在依赖水产养殖的地区造成巨大的经济损失，并在主要捕捞野生虾的地区，如美国，造成高度的市场波动。更好地了解导致疾病问题的社会政治和环境条件将加强这两类区域的粮食生产经济，特别是对受疾病暴发影响较大的小规模生产者而言。该项目将环境和背景因素纳入大宗商品研究，传统上侧重于公司在解释虾等大宗商品是如何生产的过程中所扮演的角色。对虾病的关注预计将有助于改善对虾养殖户的疾病补救管理，并有助于为美国生产商确定和传播针对市场波动的有效应对措施。虾的生产有两种截然不同的方式：(A)陆上池塘的水产养殖(养殖)和(B)传统的野生捕捞方法。全球市场上的大多数消费者对这两种方法生产的虾没有区别。因此，水产养殖业的增长极大地增加了供应，并导致使用这两种方法的生产商的全球价格下降。伴随这种增长的是对虾养殖场出现的疾病，这些疾病造成了重大的经济损失，并在全球市场上造成了剧烈的价格波动。尽管进行了数十年的研究，但大多数重大疾病的治疗仍然很困难或不可能。对于美国和亚洲的许多小规模生产商来说，这个问题尤其严重，他们受到价格普遍下跌的影响，缺乏有效应对疾病损失或市场波动的知识或资源。该项目通过询问是什么结构和社会经济驱动因素导致某些地区出现疾病，疾病如何影响地方一级的生产者，以及小规模生产者如何适应和应对疾病来解决这些问题。研究方法结合了对背景、历史和经济数据的分析，以及对北卡罗来纳州和印度尼西亚亚齐实地的对虾生产者和当地贸易商的采访。这种方法解决了商品研究的“黑箱”问题，即商品交易所的消费者方面得到了很好的理解，但地方一级的生产的社会和环境条件却没有得到很好的理解。访谈利用了调查员与这两个地区生产者群体的联系，以更好地了解生产关系、生计战略和政策影响，重点是它们如何形成以及如何受到疾病出现的影响。

This research project investigates how the emergence of shrimp diseases impacts shrimp producers and global shrimp production networks. It examines how environmental conditions interact with socio-political factors and development policy to influence the production of the world's most valuable seafood commodity. Shrimp diseases result in dramatic economic losses in regions reliant on aquaculture and create high market volatility in regions that primarily fish for wild shrimp, such as the United States. A better understanding of the socio-political and environmental conditions that drive the problem of disease will strengthen the food production economies of both types of regions, particularly for small-scale producers who are disproportionately affected by disease outbreaks. The project incorporates environmental and contextual factors into commodities research, which has traditionally focused on the role of firms in explaining how commodities like shrimp are produced. The focus on shrimp disease is expected to help improve disease remediation management for shrimp farmers as well as assist the identification and dissemination of effective responses to market volatility for U.S. producers. Shrimp are produced in two distinct ways: (a) aquaculture (farming) in land-based ponds and (b) traditional wild-capture methods. Most consumers in the global marketplace do not differentiate shrimp produced by these two methods. As a result, the growth of aquaculture has dramatically increased supply and caused a fall in global prices for producers using both methods. This growth has been accompanied by the emergence of diseases in shrimp farms, which have caused significant economic loss and dramatic price volatility in the global market. Despite decades of research, treatment of most major diseases remains difficult or impossible. The problem is especially severe for many small-scale producers in both the U.S. and Asia, who are impacted by the general fall in prices and lack the knowledge or resources to effectively respond to disease losses or market volatility. This project addresses these issues by asking what structural and socioeconomic drivers lead to the emergence of disease in certain areas, how disease impacts producers at local levels, and how small-scale producers adapt and respond to disease. The research methods combine analysis of contextual historical and economic data with interviews with shrimp producers and local traders in field sites in North Carolina and Aceh, Indonesia. This approach addresses the "black box" problem of commodities research, in which the consumer side of commodity exchanges are well understood, but the social and environmental conditions of production at the local level are not. Interviews draw on the investigator's connections with producer groups in both regions to better understand production relationships, livelihood strategies, and policy impacts, with an emphasis on how they shape and are shaped by the emergence of disease.