Since adult shrimp are bottom dwellers, stocking densities in ponds are usually given per area, not per water volume.

Welfare in aquaculture can be impacted by a number of issues such as stocking densities, behavioural interactions, disease and parasitism.

During grow out it is important to keep stocking densities at appropriate levels specific to each species, as well as separating size classes and grading to reduce aggressive behavioural interactions.

Prior to the changes in management practices, land owners often created the blowout conditions with the incorrect implementation of stocking densities, by essentially overstocking.

The opposite is true for Powys where stocking densities are increasing more and more rapidly.

Livestock stocking densities are substantially higher (40% in 1979/80) in Powys than in Cantal (though sheep predominate in the former and cattle in the latter).

Due to the aggressive nature of M. rosenbergii and the hierarchy between males, stocking densities are much lower than in penaeid shrimp farms.

However, it is extremely disappointing - as everyone has said - that we could not get something on journey times, one of the key issues; or on stocking densities.

As for reducing journey times and stocking densities, I urge that we be guided by science and not emotion, because this debate has been too much guided by emotion.

I refer to the issues instrumental in the failure of negotiations last April, namely journey times and stocking densities.