Industrial shrimp fishing in the Gulf of Mexico faces challenges both domestically and abroad, say members of the industrial sector.
The value of shrimp caught in the Campeche fleet has fallen 45% between 2020 and 2024, according to data from the Statistical Yearbook of Aquaculture and Fisheries.
Jorge Isaí Márquez, owner of the National Chamber of Fisheries and Aquaculture Industries (Canainesca), attributes the deterioration of the fishery to the narrowing of fishing areas by Pemex, obstacles to access the United States market and the lack of support from the authorities.
The industrial sector has followed with interest the recent changes of authority in the National Aquaculture and Fisheries Commission (Conapesca), in an interview, Márquez comments on the challenges faced by the sector.
* This interview has been edited for better clarity.
— How do shrimp exports to the United States influence the development of industrial fishing? [Although U.S. sanctions have focused on the Upper Gulf of California, they have had repercussions on the Gulf of Mexico.]
— In the Pacific and the Gulf, both of us have been hit hard by the export share because the North American market, which historically represented more than 90% of shrimp exports, has been closed [...].
Specifically with Texas and Tamaulipas, what they accused was that Mexican fishing vessels were entering the dividing line. It is an imaginary line in quotation marks that is now geolocated where the United States invades space to illegally fish for fish products. So that is, let's say the most important problem of markets that we share both the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico, is the lack of a market and of being able to enter through these embargoes that have occurred that are suddenly lifted and authorized for the Mexican product. In the shrimp part of the Pacific, there were many more vessels that exported, 90% of their product.
In the case of the Gulf of Mexico, it hit us, there we sold more or less 50% of exports and the other 50% was for the domestic market.
— What did they do with what could no longer be exported?
— Everything that could not be exported stayed in the domestic market, prices plummeted, but it also added to a very low historical production for 2024 and so far in 2025.
So, you might think it was no longer sent to the United States, it stayed in the domestic market, but both things fell, the price plummeted and production went to the floor.
— What happened in the past six years from your perspective on production?
— The first is that all kinds of subsidies were eliminated, fuel subsidies existed, marine diesel, which was 60% of the cost of production, was eliminated. In addition, a lot of aquaculture shrimp was allowed to be imported, with this shrimp that came not only from Asia, but also came from Ecuador and Guatemala.
So, even our aquaculture shrimp marketers weren't consuming Mexican aquaculture shrimp either because in South America and Asia, this entire aquaculture industry brings very strong subsidies, subsidies for production, food, fuel, and so on.
— What kind of subsidies do other countries have on gasoline?
— While we are paying between 20 and 24 pesos more or less per liter of fuel, which represents 60% of the cost of production, in Ecuador, for example, we pay 8 pesos per liter of fuel. Imagine, it's three times cheaper. This represents 60% of shrimp production that is fished with trawls.
And in the United States, marine diesel comes at 14 pesos, which is 10 pesos less than us. So, we're competing with the same product, in the same place, because they fish in the Gulf of Mexico too, but we have operating costs that are almost double.
The United States is precisely protecting its market, as it blocks the entry of Mexican shrimp and they are also producing it cheaper.
— As for Pemex, how do they affect exclusive zones in the Gulf of Mexico?
— In 2002, after the fall of the Twin Towers, everything that had to do with facilities for exploration and exploitation of Pemex on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico was considered national security areas. Therefore, geolocated exclusion zones or geofences were created. They referred, precisely, to areas where absolutely no one could approach, but not only where there were oil platforms, but also geofences or that were only for exploration.
This reduced, more or less, to give you an idea, by 50% the areas where you could fish not only shrimp, but any other species.
When he was President Enrique Peña Nieto, they wanted to reduce these exclusion areas by several kilometers because Pemex no longer used them all for exploration or there were even abandoned platforms.
A decree was made by which they wanted to reduce in 2015 (this is an agreement in 2016 published on October 11), but just 1 year later they backed down and not only did these areas of exclusion not decrease, but they increased.
— How does this affect?
— Well, you have a lot fewer areas to go fishing, but besides, since you can't go anywhere near, because they're protected by the Navy, you have to go around to get there.
You have to surround those areas and then you have to get away putting yourself in danger, in addition to the people who are on the boats, because it's an impressive amount of fuel, because instead of going in a straight line, you have to go around all those areas.
— Have you seen any signs of zone opening recently?
— They haven't opened the Pemex areas and they increased them not because oil production has increased but because they don't want anyone to come and see what you must have seen in many media outlets that there are a lot of oil spills in this part and there's also a lot of garbage.
— What is the feeling of the industrial sector regarding the change of the owner of Conapesca?
— We see with great concern that just what we had worked on in 9 months with a person with 40 years of experience in fishing is suddenly replaced by a person with zero experience in fishing and then we are going backwards [...].
The reality is that neither the private initiative, nor the technical sector, nor the Mexican State is considering a capacity to work so that the activity can continue to be what it should be, which is food security and national security for a country.
Comentarios (0)