As you can see Sri Lanka is a paradise. It is a land full of opportunities. We work to unlock the potential of this beautiful country. Sri Lanka has vast inland agriculture resources. These water bodies are home to a variety of freshwater species. They also provide livelihoods to hundreds of fishing communities.

Tropical Shellfish is supporting an innovative company, TSF, with establishing a regional centre, cold storage, trucks and training the fishing communities.

This makes it possible for thousands of fishermen to catch these incredible creatures.

“Well… my family has been exporting ornamental fish since 1978, So I have been exposed to this export environment. I always wanted to do something different, to diversify because I saw the resources in Sri Lanka. So one time, when these Thai buyers were here, I was showing them some pictures, and they really got interested in these large big freshwater prawns. Because they said they do not grow to these sizes anywhere else in the world. The buyers always talk about consistency, quantity and quality. These were difficult to give because there was no consistency in the supply.”
Director – TropicalShellfish 

The value chain existed in small fragments, some production here and a market there, but nothing in between, so we had to build the value chain.

So we started with seed production, that means we have to mimic the natural breeding cycle of the animals in nature. So here, at our breeding center, We have male and female breed stock, they mate and produce eggs that hatch. Each female produces 60,00 eggs. Our facility can handle 5 million larvae in a cycle.

So at the end of 45 days, we have a 1 cm post larvae that is ready to go to our nursery system.

“We are getting prawns from the TSF hatchery in Negombo and we are stocking them here. Our task is to grow them in the nursery for up to 45 days. So after 45 days , they become much larger, then we stock them in the reservoirs to improve their survival rate and also avoid their predation”
-Farmer

Finally the 45 day old prawns are carefully transferred to the reservoir. Our field officers first check the conditions of the water and if conductive, the fishers, with our assistance, take out the prawns in the batches to the reservoir.

After 6 to 8 months the prawns are big enough to catch. A single adult prawn can easily weigh 600 to 800 grams.

The fishermen also catch fish, which they can sell for a lower price to small-scale local buyers. The fishermen can sell the prawns for almost 4 to 5 times the price of the fish.

We stocks the reservoirs regularly, which means that fishermen have a more consistent supply of prawns to catch.

Collector’s Role
Collectors play an important role in the supply chain.

“From 5 am , I wait for the fishermen at the reservoir’s shore. I bring an icebox and pack the prawns on the spot. I make sure they are handled well and packed nicely. Afterwards the prawns are collected from my house”
-Collector

To make sure export quality is maintained we weigh and grade the prawns.

By 4 O’clock in the afternoon, all the products are flowing from the regional centers to Negombo to be packed that night for shipment the next morning to our markets.

What really attracted us to the Market Development Facility was that they can directly support the key elements that needed to be done in the value chain.

Given the whole picture, the vision that we are developing, that is the sustainable base, the community participation, the market and the opportunity as a whole.

A lot of work went into training capacity building with the fishermen, with our own company, with our staff to help facilitate all underpinning the support that MDF could provide.