The global coronavirus pandemic has likely changed the shrimp industry permanently, according to a consensus of sector veterans and market experts in Ecuador, India, the US, Europe and Southeast Asia, speaking at a pair of webinars over the past week.

"We had a global collapse within a very short period of time," said Jim Gulkin, general manager of Thai-based seafood trader Siam Canadian, speaking as part of an Infofish industry update on May 15. "It’s not a slow market decline or even a rapid market shock, but a completely unprecedented event that shut everything down instantly."

The shrimp industry, which was already poised on a very delicate supply-demand balance in which farmers could largely make ends meet, has now seen sharp price declines in most key producing regions around the globe, as first Chinese then US foodservice sectors were hit heavily by national lockdowns [...]