Intensive shrimp farming in Southeast Asia faces persistent disease outbreaks driven by conditions that compromise shrimp welfare and create systemic vulnerabilities in the global seafood supply chain.
Intensive Asian shrimp farming welfare is shaped by the same dynamic as salmon farming: the stocking densities and management practices that maximise short-term production create the disease pressure that then destroys that production. Early Mortality Syndrome -- caused by bacteria that thrive in poor water quality conditions -- is a disease of intensive production practices. The welfare harm (shrimp dying en masse from bacterial infection) is the welfare cost of the system that produces cheap shrimp. Reducing stocking densities, improving water quality management, and reducing antibiotic dependence would improve both welfare outcomes and production stability -- but requires investment that small-scale producers under price pressure find difficult to make without external support.