"SAN FRANCISCO — Noriko Kuwabara was excited to try a new recipe she’d seen on social media for crispy shrimp spring rolls, so she and her husband headed to Costco’s frozen foods aisle. But when she grabbed a bag of farm-raised shrimp from the freezer and saw “Product of India,” she wrinkled her nose.

“I actually try to avoid shrimp from India,” said Kuwabara, an artist. “I hear some bad things about how it’s grown there.”

She sighed and tossed the bag in her cart anyway.

Kuwabara’s dilemma is one an increasing number of American consumers face: With shrimp the leading seafood eaten in the United States, the largest supplier in this country is India, where the industry struggles with labor and environmental problems.

The Associated Press traveled in February to the state of Andhra Pradesh in southeast India to document working conditions in the booming industry, after obtaining an advance copy of an investigation released Wednesday by the Chicago-based Corporate Accountability Lab, a human rights legal group, that found workers face “dangerous and abusive conditions.”"

Martha Mendoza, Mahesh Kumar and Piyush Nagpal report for the Associated Press March 20, 2024. [2]

SEE ALSO:

"An American Who Managed a Shrimp Processing Plant in India Files a Whistleblower Complaint With U.S. Authorities" (Outlaw Ocean Project/ICN) [3]

"Highlights From The AP’s Reporting On The Shrimp Industry In India" (AP) [4]

"Hidden Harvest" (Corporate Accountability Lab) [5]