While trade data allows us to look back and reflect on the year, it does not permit us to look ahead. This is where GalaxEye Blue comes into play. GalaxEye Blue monitors shrimp production in Andhra Pradesh and allows us to follow stocking patterns closely. For this byte, I have worked closely with Palash Pantawane, Product Manager at GalaxEye. Here we share our key observations about 2024’s winter crop and 2025’s start of the culturing season.
Strong Wintercrop
The table above shows the number of acres newly stocked in the last quarter of 2024. It is clear that amidst the upward price trend, Indian farmers have been stocking their ponds at considerably higher levels than in 2023. While some of these ponds have already been harvested, data suggests that around 20,000 acres were still running at the end of February and would be harvested from March to May.
Months | 2023 | 2024 | Year over Year % |
|---|---|---|---|
Oct | 27,621 | 46,615 | 69% |
Nov | 30,639 | 31,692 | 3% |
Dec | 26,411 | 33,445 | 27% |
Total | 84,672 | 111,753 | 32% |
Slow Start of 2025
The table below shows that while stocking was ahead of the previous year in Q4 2024, in Q1 2025, we saw a drastic drop in the number of new ponds that were stocked. This signals that farmers went for a strong winter crop. They have slightly delayed stocking for the first crop of 2025.
Months | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | Year over Year % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Jan | 32,923 | 27,431 | 27,069 | -1% |
Feb | 34,717 | 36,217 | 24,067 | -50% |
Total | 69,663 | 65,673 | 53,161 | -24% |
As of 28th February 2025
District Name | Total No. of Ponds | Total Ponds Acreage | Total No. of Active Ponds | Total Running Acreage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
East Godavari | 23,328 | 24,305 | 13,517 | 12,287 |
Guntur | 9,309 | 8,578 | 4,341 | 4,126 |
Krishna | 29,546 | 48,905 | 16,402 | 23,337 |
Nellore | 16,474 | 21,816 | 6,107 | 7,714 |
Prakasam | 6,021 | 5,659 | 2,670 | 2,427 |
West Godavari | 25,897 | 55,017 | 13,435 | 22,258 |
Total | 110,575 | 164,280 | 56,472 | 72,149 |
Data from February 28th, 2025 (table above), shows that 56,472 of 110,575 shrimp ponds are currently under active culture. This equals 72,149 acres under culture out of a total of 164,280 acres.
While some larger sizes of the winter crop were still in the water (some 35% of the total acreage stocked), as of February 28, 2025, 43% of the active shrimp ponds fall under the >100C count category, illustrative of the fact that the new farming cycle has only just started (graph below).
Regional differences exist between Southern Andhra Pradesh and Central and Northern Andhra Pradesh districts. We can, for example, see that in East and West Godavari and Krishna, all in Central and Northern Andhra Pradesh, larger sizes are pretty available; the availability of larger sizes in Southern Andhra Pradesh, in Nellore, Prakasam, and Guntur, is much more limited. This reflects the more significant amount of ponds stocked for the winter crop in Central and Northern Andhra Pradesh compared to the amount of ponds stocked during the winter season in Southern Andhra Pradesh.
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