REVIEW ARTICLE Current status and prospects of farming the giant river prawn (Macrobrachium rosenbergii (De Man 1879) and the Amazon river prawn Macrobrachium amazonicum (Heller 1862)) in Brazil Helcio Luis de Almeida Marques & Patricia M C Moraes-Valenti Fisheries Institute, Secretariat of Agriculture and Food Supply, Sa ˜o Paulo State, Sa ˜o Paulo, SP, Brazil Correspondence: H L A Marques, Fisheries Institute, Secretariat of Agriculture and Food Supply, Sa ˜o Paulo State, Av. Francisco Matarazzo, 455 – 05001-900, Sa ˜o Paulo, SP, Brazil. E-mail: helcio@pesca.sp.gov.br Abstract This article describes some aspects of the current status of Macrobrachium rosenbergii (De Man 1879) and Macrobrachium amazonicum (Heller 1862) farming in Brazil, including a brief description of the technologies used. A history of the farming of M. amazonicum is provided, together with the marketing strategies currently employed for freshwater prawns in Brazil and future trends. It was concluded that freshwater prawn farming in Brazil currently has a favour- able scenario for expansion due to increasing demand and to prospects of an improved organi- zation of the productive chain. Keywords: culture, current situation, fresh- water prawn, marketing strategies, trends Introduction Freshwater prawn farming in Brazil began in the early 1980s and increased rapidly, attaining an annual production of about 1000 t at the begin- ning of the 1990s (Valenti 1993). However, pro- duction decreased during the late 1990s for several reasons, including: lack of postlarvae (PL) supply, inadequate extension services and the sub- standard quality of prawns produced (Valenti 2007). Other factors that also contributed to this decline were: absence or mistakes in marketing strategies, the rise of marine shrimp farming and expansion in culturing of various fish species (mainly tilapia), which, at that time reached high prices in sales for recreational fishing. Production of farmed freshwater prawns in Bra- zil varied from 230 to 450 t year 1 from 2000 to 2006, but declined to 230 t in 2007 and further to a reported level of 100 t year 1 in 2008 and 2009 (FAO 2011). However, according to New and Kutty (2010), these data may be under-esti- mated. In fact, in recent years, there has been news of the emergence of small hatcheries that stimulate production in the neighbouring farms, and this production hardly appears in official data. At present, Macrobrachium rosenbergii (De Man 1879) is the only species commercially farmed, but native species as Macrobrachium amazonicum (Heller 1862), M. acanthurus Weigmann 1836 and M. carcinus (Linnaeus 1758) are exploited in cap- ture fisheries in the north and northeast regions (Valenti 2007). Among these, M. amazonicum pre- sents great potential for aquaculture (Kutty, Her- man & Le Menn 2000). In 1996, a pilot production of the Amazon river prawn M. amazon- icum began, but unfortunately ceased due the lack of PL and suitable production technology. At pres- ent, experimental farming of M. amazonicum has also been carried out successfully, and technology is now available to produce this species (Moraes- Valenti & Valenti 2010). Recently, hatchery stud- ies on M. carcinus have been carried out with promising results (Rocha, Santos, Branco, Lima & Correia 2011). © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 984 Aquac Res 2012, 43, 984–992 doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2109.2011.03032.x