“Whether one is a collector, a dealer, or a fishery owner, to engage in the prawn industry is a ‘risky’ business. People either make or lose millions and just as they are susceptible to gain in economic and political power, gain the chance to migrate towards the city and thus access higher social status, they can just as easily lose their life to tigers or crocodiles or their possessions to a storm or a retributive attack.”
– Forest of Tigers, page 134
History of the Prawn Industry
The global prawn industry began gaining popularity in the late 1970s in sub-tropical regions such as the Sundarbans, as prawns changed from a dish reserved for cocktail parties and the business elite into a seafood favorite among all socio-economic classes in the United States. Islanders of all jatis and castes in the Sundarbans saw it as an opportunity to make an income apart from working in the forest or owning land. Forest officials had been increasingly strict in penalizing islanders who traveled into the forest without first obtaining a forest pass. These passes were more expensive than many forest workers could afford and prawn seed collection offered them a low-investment alternative that had the potential to make them more money than their work in the forest did. Two historic cyclones, in 1981 and in 1988, resulted in a sharp increase in conversion to prawns among both forest workers and landowners, as the cyclones destroyed islands’ protective bunds and depleted soil fertility for the foreseeable future. Unable to cultivate their land for agriculture, landowners converted their plots into saline pools and became prawn dealers, buying from prawn seed collectors and selling to bigger prawn fisheries in mainland India and Bangladesh. Many have drawn parallels between the booming prawn industry and the Green Revolution that drastically changed global agriculture throughout the 20th century. The use of chemical fertilizers and other growth aids by farmers in developing countries allowed for a significantly higher crop yield than previously had. It was believed that the Green Revolution had the potential to solve the global hunger crisis. The “Blue Revolution” refers to the similar explosion in aquaculture development and yield since the 1970s. Since the turn of the millennium, the prawn industry has only continued to grow in size; however, the volatile industry both gives and takes. Fluctuating market prices, inter-island relations, and prawn diseases lead to a lack of predictability. Still, the industry grows, re-shaping social hierarchies in the Sundarbans islands and adversely affecting the surrounding ecosystem. A backlash against the industry can also be found throughout all socio-economic groups, as forest workers condemn the industry for its greed and disrespect for the natural world, and “educated elites” fear the shifting social dynamics could change the culture within the Sundarbans irreversibly.
Positions within the Prawn Industry
Seed Collectors
“Prawn seed collection quickly gained popularity because it could be practiced along the banks of one’s island during one’s leisure time and required a very modest investment (a mosquito net mounted on a thin wooden frame), it was easily available and sold for significant sums, and it was legal and not yet tainted with the stigma it subsequently came to bear.”
– Forest of Tigers, page 116
Prawn seed collection is the first level of the prawn industry, as all other aspects require the prawn seeds to operate. The collection is done in one of two ways, either by boat or by walking along the riverbanks pulling a large net. A fine triangular net is attached to one end of a fisher’s boat and dragged along behind the boat as it goes around the river. Approximately every half an hour, the fisher will pull up the net and pour its contents into the boat to later be sorted and counted. The more popular method is practiced largely by female islanders, who wade in waist-to-shoulder deep water along the banks of the river pulling along a rectangularly shaped mosquito net and sorting through its catch when the net becomes heavy. Whereas forest fishers go out on their boats for days at a time, women and children who pull nets are able to easily return to their homestead to complete household chores or their school to participate in their classes and games.
While more practical for some, pulling nets leaves workers highly vulnerable to crocodile attack. In the 1980s, the Indian government promoted the establishment of crocodile hatcheries, resulting in huge numbers of crocodiles inhabiting the Sundarbans rivers. These crocodiles at their largest can be 23 feet (7 meters) long and can swiftly pluck women and children from the river bank. Crocodiles may be their biggest threat, but pulling nets also leaves workers at an increased risk of attack by tiger or snake.
Another risk that prawn seed collectors take in their work is the constantly fluctuating market for prawn. Varying not only by season but also by time of day, prawn seed collectors continuously get different wages for their labor from the prawn dealers who buy seedlings from them. There is no guarantee of how much money a prawn seed collector will actually make. Collectors carefully observe the lunar cycle, wind velocity, and wave amplitude as telling factors of how great or meager their bounty will be at a given time.
Dealers
Prawn dealers are the middleman between prawn seed collectors and the fishery owners. On one end, dealers supervise the collectors as they sort and count their bounty. Sometimes collectors include dead tiger prawn seedlings or non-tiger prawn seedlings in what they sell to the dealers as an attempt to make a greater profit (as they get paid per prawn seed), and thus dealers keep a watchful eye over the counting process itself to ensure they are getting quality product. They know that the seed collectors may try to negotiate prices for their product, but that they are ultimately in charge of setting prices as collectors need to sell as quickly as they can before the prawns start to die.
Four to seven dealers will work for a given khoti. The khoti owners will give them a lump sum of money to spend on prawn seed per day, usually between 500 and 1,000 Indian rupees. Each dealer carries a notebook where they meticulously record every aspect of their transactions with collectors, including the name of the collector they bought from, the number of seedlings bought, and the precise time and date of the transaction. They do this so as to avoid disputes with the people they buy from as well as the people they sell to.
Khoti Owners
Khoti owners are the top tier of the Sundarbans prawn industry. Khotis are by no means the biggest fisheries in the prawn industry, as those are found in “up” islands and on the mainland. Khotis rely on the prawn seed collectors for their product and the dealers to accurately record every transaction between collector and dealer so that khotis can sell to bigger fisheries without having to recount every prawn seed. To recount every seedling would take time that is not possible before the prawn seedlings would begin to die off.
Khotis are typically comprised of three to four men who pool together around 5,000 rupees each to open their business. 5,000 rupees is a huge sum for many islanders in the Sundarbans, resulting in khoti ownership being exclusive to only those who can afford it (typically landowners and otherwise top-tier people). Every day they distribute a lump sum to the dealers who work for them, shelling out between 30,000 and 100,000 rupees each month. It is not common, however, for khoti owners to have such an amount of money by a specific deadline each month, due to the volatility of the industry. Many khoti owners will hold off paying the prawn seed collectors (through the dealers) until the end of the peak prawn season (July-Sept.), promising interest on their earnings as well.
Effects of the Prawn Industry in the Sundarbans
Social Structure
Gender Dynamics
Prawn seed collection presents a unique opportunity in the Sundarbans; women are able to join the industry and make their own income. Forest work and land ownership(/agriculture) are historically male-dominated fields, and for the first time an industry has taken off in the Sundarbans that is predominantly occupied by female workers. As previously mentioned, women are attracted to the prawn industry because it requires minimal investment (commonly found materials to create the net apparatus) and it provides the flexibility needed by women who must simultaneously complete household chores and care for their children. Having their own independent income gives female collectors agency and the ability to contribute to the household income and further their families in their local socio-economic hierarchy. This upward mobility is not without its critics, however. Both forest workers and the “educated elite,” who traditionally dispute with each other, agree that a stronger female workforce in the Sundarbans is threatening and potentially detrimental. Forest workers believe that it is disrespectful to Bonbibi when women enter the forest to do their work, as the presence of women taints the purity of the forest. Upper-class citizens fear the shifting social dynamics and are threatened by female success, as it could potentially dethrone the landed gentry from the top of the social hierarchy.
Social Hierarchy
Before the 1970s and the explosion of the prawn industry, there were only two clear economic groups in the Sundarbans: the forest workers and the landowners. Prawn income virtually did not exist until the market started taking off, and the presence of the prawn industry in the Sundarbans economy became known quite suddenly and rapidly. Those at the top of the traditional socioeconomic hierarchy, the landed gentry, feared (and to a great extent are still wary of) the prawn industry, seeing its potential to take political and economic power out of their hands. Those at the bottom of the hierarchy, the forest workers, were further marginalized by the presence of another superior class. They condemn the prawn industry and its workers for its rigid business-like model and inherent greed.
Economics
- Annual farm-gate value > $400,000,000
- Annual retail value > $2,000,000,000
- Export costs
Ecology
The prawn industry has contributed significantly to deforestation, salinification, and loss of biodiversity in the Sundarbans. Landowners wanting to break into the prawn business clear their plots of any vegetation and construct perimeters like bunds around pools of saline water. Excess saline in soil renders the soil infertile for agricultural growth. This is a great risk because of how volatile the prawn industry is; if there was a market crash or a disease that killed off prawn seed, landowners who convert their land would not be able to go back to agricultural cultivation for at least three years (as it takes three years for soil fertility to naturally be replenished by nutrients once it is depleted of them). On the other hand, this is the reason why many landowners enter the prawn industry in the first place. When bunds are destroyed in storms, salt water floods the island and depletes soil fertility, forcing farmers to convert their fields into saline pools. The more farmers forced into the prawn industry, or the more that enter on their own will, the greater the loss of biodiversity in the Sundarbans. Clearing of native vegetation, only to be replaced by a monoculture of one species of tiger prawn, is a devastating blow to the number of species found on the islands. It is a loss of a source of food and habitat for many creatures, leaving them vulnerable to starvation and death. Having a monoculture adds to the volatility of the prawn industry. The concentration and uniformity of the tiger prawns raised in these saline pools allow for disease to swiftly spread and ruin an entire yield.
