Dr. Adisorn Promthep, the Director-General of the Department of Fisheries, said that with intense competition in shrimp global market, any positive or negative news cause high interest of consumers and they are ready to share or follow the news. There is the video released last week on YouTube by a German NGO entitled "The dirty business with the shrimps". This documentary presents a very negative image of the shrimp farming sector in Thailand. This cause misunderstanding and deter the consumers from the fact resulting in damaging the image of Thai shrimp. The documentary presents "old" situation of shrimp farming since 2011; however, our farming has made a great improvement upon sustainable manner. Dr. David Bassett, Program Manager of EURASTiP or The European Asian Aquaculture Technology and Innovation Platform; which aims at reinforcing international cooperation on sustainable aquaculture production with countries from South East Asia, gave his speech at the event "Aquaculture in Thailand: Challenges and Opportunities for Europe" on 2 September 2019 that "This new video is just an English version of the same programme "Schmutizge Shrimps" – dirty shrimp in German – that was circulating in 2012 in Germany. This means that – aside from false statements – the present video is completely outdated, particularly for all the wrong claims on how mangrove areas are cleaned for shrimp farming, misuse of antibiotics and other chemicals, pond discharges making rivers toxic and dangerous for children swimming in these waters, all the illegal workers from Myanmar, and so on. Nothing constructive, not considering all the efforts over the last decade to make the shrimp farming more sustainable by the Thai government authorities, shrimp farm associations and service providers. The EURASTIP partners are available to provide all the necessary documentation to counter the false statements made in the video.
The Director-General of the Department of Fisheries concluded that on behalf of the competent authority of Thailand, Thai shrimp farmers, and other stakeholders the whole value chain would like to thank EURASTiP importers, and consumers for their confidence in "Thai shrimp industry" " we reiterate that Thailand has given priority to "sustainability of shrimp industry. We ask to stop sharing this false statement/documentary and please assist us to "publish" and "provide" the accurate and update information and should further information be needed please contact the Department of Fisheries