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A shrimp producers group is urging the government to intervene in the market to help small-scale growers struggling with low prices.

Nafian Faiz, general chairman of the Lampung branch of Tiger Shrimp Plasma Growers (P3UW), said on Monday that the government should set a minimum price for shrimp and subsidize farmers when they were unable to command the minimum price from shrimp buyers.

Currently, large-scale shrimp buyers are in a dominant position and control the prices paid to growers, Nafian said.

“The government should pay more attention to shrimp growers, especially to the continuously falling shrimp price,” he said.

Shrimp prices paid to farmers have dropped from $12.40 a kilogram in 2006 to around $6.80 a kilogram today.

Riza Damanik, coordinator of the Fisheries Justice Coalition (Kiara), said domestic shrimp farmers had very little bargaining power when dealing with large-scale buyers.

He said producer and processor PT Central Proteinaprima bought around 70 percent of the shrimp produced by local farmers and that its dominant position contributed to low prices.

Riza also urged the government to improve environmental regulation of the shrimp farming industry.

Unfettered expansion of shrimp farms was leading to too many farms, which damaged the environment and resulted in farmers having to spend more on drugs and vitamins for the shrimp, he said.

The government is aiming to lift shrimp production from an expected 400,000 tons in 2010 to 700,000 tons by 2014.

Shrimp farmers have also been hit by the rising cost of shrimp feed, which increased by about 25 percent in 2009.

In January, Suhana, a marine biologist at the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB), suggested that the government should build local feed mills to bring down prices because about 40 percent of feed ingredients were imported.