Risk Factors Associated With Poor Shrimp Aquaculture in Egypt

Shrimp farming has been heralded as part of a 'Blue Revolution', capable of providing food whilst allowing wild stocks to recover from over-fishing. The industry has experienced spectacular growth in recent years. Today, farmed shrimp account for about one third of global consumption of shrimp, having a retail value of US$50-60 billion. Mounting evidence raises serious concerns over the environmental and economic sustainability, as well as social equity, of large parts of the shrimp farming industry. The aim of this study was to assess the most prominent risk factors associated with poor shrimp aquaculture in Egypt. For this purpose 80 villages were selected randomly from different Dakahlia governorate districts where a questionnaire about the hypothesized risk factors was constructed. The final multivariate logistic regression model showed, a significant association between poverty (p<0.05), aquaculture area tourism consideration (p<0.05), aquaculture area military consideration (p<0.05), availability of man power (p<0.05), carrying out individual interview for data collection (p<0.05), respond ability of governmental organizations in data collection (p<0.05) and poor shrimp aquaculture in Egypt. According to our knowledge, this is the first paper discussing the most prominent risk factors regarding poor shrimp aquaculture in Egypt.