A production economic analysis of different stocking density and fry size combinations of milkfish, Chanos chanos, farming in Taiwan

Abstract

Milkfish, Chanos chanos, is often cultured with white shrimp, Penaeus indicus, to maintain ecological stability and increase profits. This study uses the outputs and cost data of 169 milkfish farmers in Taiwan for the years 2018 and 2019 and applies translog cost function modeling to analyze the production scale economy and input-input demand combinations of two stocking densities (<10,000, ≥10,000 fry/ha) and two fry stocking sizes (2-3 in. and ≥4 in.). The study found that high-density stocking (≥10,000 fry/ha) of small or large milkfish fry has economies of scale overall. Thus, the average culture cost may be reduced by expanding the scale of milkfish production. High-density stocking of small fry exhibits a comparatively higher own-price elasticity of fry. As such, farmers are sensitive to fry price variations. The study also found that labor and capital exhibit

Evaluation of the Technical Efficiency of Taiwan’s Milkfish Polyculture in Consideration of Differences in Culturing Models and Environments

“…According to the results of the Fishermen's Economic Survey by the Taiwan Fisheries Agency, the highest cost associated with milkfish culturing is feed, which accounts for 39.7% of the total cost, followed by labor costs (13.9%), fish fry costs (10.9%), water, electricity and fuel costs (7.5%) and pond servicing costs (2.9%). Referring to the variable settings in studies such as [3], this paper takes four input variables, namely, labor cost, fry cost, feed cost and water, electricity and miscellaneous cost, and two output variables, namely, milkfish production and white shrimp production. The input and output data are converted to the monthly, per-hectare average to be used as the evaluation benchmark.…”

“…In the early stage, Taiwan's milkfish farming mainly adopted the monoculture method. Later, it was found that a mixed culture with white shrimp (Penaeus indicus) (Figure 2) could not only increase owner's income [1][2][3][4], but also keep fish ponds clean [4][5][6]. However, the cultivation of white shrimp comes with many advantages, such as removing the need for extra feed and cleaning feed residues and fish waste without affecting the growth space needed for milkfish.…”

“…Some agricultural fishery literature has discussed its economic benefits [10][11][12], the efficiency of poly culturing Nile fish [13][14][15], shrimp [16,17], milkfish [3,18], perch, snapper [19] and clams [20], ways to evaluate the farming environment and farmers' credit [21,22]. Ref.…”