Let’s begin the External Analysis with the opportunities available to the shrimp industry first. The greatest opportunity available to the shrimp industry is the ever present demand for shrimps. The demand is greater in countries which are in the colder regions and those which are land locked. Since shrimp catch varies from the peak period to the slack one, the prices go higher especially in the off season owing to more demand and less supply. Even in period when there is not much of succeeding, still the fishermen are never against the wall, they’ve never had their families watch them starve.

With the demand for sea food far out pacing the production capacity of oceans and streams, aqua culture-or fish farming is one of the world’s fastest growing food industries. Globally, sales have reached $33.5 billion according to the Food and Agriculture organization of the United Nations. In the United States, aqua culture production has grown as well, from 167,864 tons in 1984 (valued at $464 m in 1996) to 332,817 tons in 1994 (valued at $795 m) according to the National Marine Fisheries service of the commerce department. Worldwide the demand is increasing; this has given rise to increased farm raised fisheries especially salmon. Very few people could afford to eat salmon if it wasn’t farm raised. Its difficult to list down demands, which is met only half ways, there’s a lot which can be done but there’s a severe limitation which can be enumerated through the PEST analysis model.

Political- Threat the local shrimp industry is facing from imports. Imports from aquaculture ponds in the Pacific Rim and Latin America continue to flood the domestic American market. Even a brewing storm here over imported Asian shrimp found to be contaminated with a dangerous antibiotic, chloramphenicol, could end up hurting the domestic shrimpers, they fear. Chloramphenicol is used in treating diseases like anthrax and typhoid, but is banned from agricultural use in the United States and many other countries because it can cause leukemia in children and aplastic anemia, an often-fatal blood disease, in adults. Some foreign aquaculture farms, particularly the ones in China, use the drug because the shrimps are grown densely in ponds and are susceptible to disease outbreaks. News of the disease out-break, be it genuine or non genuine spreads like fire and this can affect the whole industry like the one which surfaced when a local shrimper saw an item about chloramphenicol in a frozen-foods trade journal. Word quickly spread over VHF radios and cell phones, and before long, Louisiana's agriculture commissioner, had sent his own inspectors to test imported shrimp at grocery stores.

Some results were positive for chloramphenicol; an emergency order was issued requiring tests of all Chinese shrimp and crawfish sold in the state. But some traces of the drug were also found in some boxes of shrimp labeled ''Product of Louisiana,'' meaning that somewhere along the line processors may have mixed foreign shrimp with the local catch for political reasons. Its like a double-edged sword, it could help with the Chinese thing, but it could also lower the local demand. It is felt, shrimpers, as low on the political food chain as their prey, would never get the trade protections that farmers, sugar refiners and steel mills enjoy.

Economic/Environmental- Economically, on the global positioning level, the unforgiving economics of shrimp business is due to its seasonal activity and other natural calamities surrounding. The rhythms of nature are such that the first two weeks of the brown-shrimp season, in May, and the first two weeks of the white-shrimp season, in late summer, are when shrimpers can hope to make most of his money. That number shrinks quickly. On the other the maintenance cost increases, especially fuel, groceries and storage on deck. As if the long-term economic challenges are not enough, a rare May cold front can blow the better part of the brown shrimp crop out into the Gulf -- beyond the reach of inland fishermen - barely a week before the start of the fishing season. That's like if you're a sugar cane farmer ready to harvest, and a hurricane comes in and flattens out your cane. The contractors have to lend fishermen the cost of fuel and ice as well as money for boat repairs, just to keep them bringing them a product to sell.

Environmental and Social- Marking 1998 as the International Year of the Ocean warned that unless action is taken, over fishing, coastal development and pollution will multiply the kinds of problems that already plague the Gulf. Oceans and seas are turning into dead zones. The trouble with the dead zone is that it lacks oxygen, scientists say, apparently because of pollution in the form of excess nutrients flowing into the Gulf. Animals in this smothering layer of water near the bottom of the sea must flee or perish.

Technological- Five years ago no one talked about the whole issue of sustainability, that's all, is talked about now. The question is how to deal with increased environmental costs at a time of drastic declines in the prices of some seafood, like salmon, because of increasing farm-bred supplies. The answer, according to many experts and some environmentalists who are trying to work with the industry, is cutting production costs through increased efficiency and finding a market for eco-friendly products that will provide a margin for improved environmental practices. The World Wildlife Fund is working with Unilever, the British-Dutch food conglomerate, to certify all of its seafood sources as sustainable. The lower aquaculture goes on the food chain, the better its image seems to get. In the Puget Sound, filter feeders -- oysters, mussels, and clams --are synonymous with a healthy environment, and the companies that farm them are allies of local environmentalists. If the water quality is not good then the private fish farming is the first thing that gets closed down. Companies are working with something that's filtering the water to promote private fisheries business.

There is a lot further along in breeding, working with the genetic side. And Aquaculture is going to catch with agriculture.