Business Case Studies & Business Publications

Shrimp Commodity Systems Learning Lab

Landel, Robert D.,...

Technical Note

Shrimp Commodity Systems Learning Lab

Landel, Robert D.; Soderquist, Chris

OM-1405 | Published December 23, 2009 | 2 pages Technical Note

Collection: Darden School of Business

Add To Cart Buy Now

Product Details

Appropriate for environmental sustainability or systems thinking courses. This Learning Lab offers a progression of interactive learning experiences for the purpose of building user understanding of the shrimp industry system, the issues it faces, and how policy alternatives may improve the industry's typical boom and bust patterns. There are two learning pathways in the Lab. The Systems Thinking Basics Course builds basic understanding of renewable commodity systems through a presentation of the most important interrelationships among consumer market demand, wild shrimp fisheries, shrimp aquaculture, environmental factors, and market price. Users experience the dynamics of the system utilizing various simulation runs involving a progression of common renewable commodity system issues: resource depletion and environmental pollution. The Policy and Scenarios Advance Course deepens students understanding of commodity systems behavior by testing policies designed to address commodity systems traps and with alternative scenarios dealing with market forces. A teaching note (OM-1428TN) is available.

Discuss commodity systems and major issues facing the global shrimp industry, including both wild catch and aquaculture. Provide application of systems thinking and stock-flow mapping as a means of hypothesizing and expressing the underlying system feedback structures. Analyze policy and scenario alternatives that influence system performance including harvest technologies, demand growth, aquaculture effluents, aquaculture and fishery subsidies, good practice incentives, and various regulations.