A 48-Pond Shrimp Farm Received 3 Formal Complaints in One Year Because Biting Midges and Mosquitoes Drifted Into the Village
Last updated: 7 Sep 2026 | 3 Views |
A true story from a 48-pond white shrimp farm in Samut Songkhram, Thailand
A 48-Pond Shrimp Farm Received 3 Formal Complaints in One Year Because Biting Midges and Mosquitoes Drifted Into the Village
When insects from your ponds become the whole village's complaint, and a fully licensed farm nearly has to stop operating
A 48-pond white shrimp farm in Samut Songkhram received three formal complaints to the sub-district administration in a single year, because saltmarsh biting midges and mosquitoes from the ponds drifted into the neighbouring village every evening. Here is a problem aquaculture farms across the country share, and how the AIROFOG AT35 thermal fogger solved both the insects and the community relationship.
Amnuay, 55, has farmed white shrimp for 17 years and now runs 48 ponds across about 90 rai in Amphawa district, Samut Songkhram. His farm holds every licence, is GAP certified, and treats its water before discharge exactly as required.
But over the past year he received three letters from the sub-district administration, after residents of a village roughly 400 metres away complained that large numbers of biting midges and mosquitoes were drifting in every evening, to the point where they could not open their windows or eat outdoors.
Amnuay says his first reaction was that it was unfair, because his farm complies with everything. Then he drove to the village at six one evening to see for himself — and understood immediately that the residents had not exaggerated at all.
The evening he stood in the middle of the village
Amnuay parked at the village community hall around six in the evening, intending to explain to the village head that his farm was fully compliant. Within ten minutes of standing there, he no longer had anything to explain.
Tiny midges came in clouds thick enough that he had to cover his face, and within minutes his arms carried dozens of red bite marks. The village head simply said: it is like this every evening, and has been for three years.
What silenced him was a house with two small children, where the mother had closed every window and door from five in the afternoon and was running a fan instead of letting the breeze in — in a wooden house that gets very hot in the evening.
He says he stopped thinking about who was legally right and started thinking about how to fix it. However complete his licences were, people living 400 metres away were living with the consequences of his business every evening.
Why aquaculture ponds are a large insect source
District fisheries and health officers surveyed the farm together and explained that the main problem species were saltmarsh biting midges and mosquitoes, whose life cycles relate directly to pond conditions.
Biting midges lay in damp mud and along pond margins where organic sediment accumulates. A farm with 48 ponds has several kilometres of pond margin in total — an enormous laying area that the owner had never regarded as a problem at all.
Mosquitoes mostly breed in reservoir ponds, treatment ponds and the channels between ponds where water sits still with weeds along the edge — plus containers and equipment left around the farm: plastic drums, tyres and cut PVC pipe stacked anywhere.
The final factor carrying the problem into the village was wind. In the evening the sea breeze blows in from the south-west, and the village sits directly downwind, so insects leaving the farm are carried in and accumulate there every single evening.
The risks the farm faced that nobody warns you about
Amnuay consulted a lawyer and got an answer that alarmed him: even with full licensing and certification, a nuisance complaint affecting residents' ability to live normally gives local officers authority to order remediation — and non-compliance can lead to a temporary suspension order.
He worked out what a suspension mid-cycle would mean. Shrimp in 48 ponds two months into growth are worth roughly 20 million baht, and they cannot wait: stop feeding or stop the aerators and they die within hours.
Beyond legal risk there was labour risk. Farm workers are the ones bitten worst, because they walk the ponds and check aerators at night. That year two workers resigned, telling him plainly they could not tolerate the midges.
And the risk that worried him most was the community relationship. A farm in a rural area depends on its neighbours for many things — road use, local labour, and understanding when something goes wrong. Losing that costs far more than people expect.
What the farm did, and what happened within three months
Amnuay called his team together and planned in three parts. First, managing the pond margins and sediment: scheduled removal of margin mud and cutting the vegetation along the edges, plus regrading the inter-pond channels so water does not pool.
Second, tidying the equipment: putting every plastic drum, tyre, cut PVC pipe and anything else that can hold water into a store or inverting it. It took two days and eliminated a large number of breeding sites.
Third, the change that shifted the outcome: buying thermal foggers for the farm and setting a daily schedule between three and four in the afternoon, concentrating on the pond margins, the channels, the rough vegetation, and above all the fence line on the side facing the village.
What he added, and what the village now talks about most, was offering the village head that the farm would fog the village itself once a week at the farm's own expense — which turned the relationship from adversarial to cooperative within a month.
What it actually costs
The risk of a remediation or suspension order
Full licensing and certification do not protect against a nuisance complaint affecting residents' ability to live normally, which gives local officers authority to issue orders. And 20 million baht of shrimp in 48 ponds cannot wait even a single day.
Already scarce labour becoming scarcer
Shrimp farm workers walk the ponds and check aerators at night, exactly when midges and mosquitoes are densest. That year the farm lost two workers who said plainly they could not tolerate the insects. In an area where labour is scarce, losing one person is costly.
The community relationship the farm depends on
A rural farm depends on its neighbours for road use, local labour, and understanding when problems arise. When that relationship sours, everything becomes harder — and repairing it takes far longer than damaging it did.
The health of the surrounding community
Midges and mosquitoes from the farm are not merely a nuisance: mosquitoes carry dengue and other diseases. In a village with small children and elderly residents, that risk is real, and it is a responsibility the farm should recognise.
Why the usual fixes do not work
Explaining that the farm complies with every regulation
Legally correct, but it does nothing for people closing their windows every evening — and emphasising compliance usually worsens the relationship, because residents hear that the farm does not care about their difficulty.
Handing out mosquito coils to residents
Well-intentioned, but it treats the endpoint and works over a few metres. It also amounts to admitting the farm is the source while declining to fix it, which can escalate complaints rather than reduce them.
Planting a windbreak around the farm
It does reduce the wind carrying insects toward the village and is worth doing, but dense planting also creates additional harbourage. It must be paired with fogging rather than relied on alone.
Hiring a contractor to spray after a complaint
Acting after a complaint is already too late, and a contractor comes occasionally while midges and mosquitoes emerge continuously every week. The problem returns within days, and so do the complaints.
Putting chemicals directly into the culture ponds
Neither possible nor advisable. It affects the shrimp directly and compromises GAP certification and buyers' residue testing. Management must be confined to pond margins, channels and the surrounding area — never the culture water.
Manage the pond margins and the downwind fence line, not the culture ponds
The principle the fisheries and health officers showed Amnuay is that the breeding and resting habitat on a shrimp farm is the pond margins, the channels, the mud sediment and the rough vegetation — not the culture water. So it can be managed without affecting the shrimp at all.
A thermal fogger suits this best, because the fog blankets several kilometres of pond margin quickly, drifts into the rough vegetation and channels, and covers the fence line on the village side — the last barrier before insects are carried out on the wind.
The right window is three to four in the afternoon, before the evening breeze strengthens and before the insects emerge, which is the timing that most reduces the number carried into the village.
And the machine must belong to the farm, because it needs running daily through the peak season and must survive the salt air and humidity that corrode every piece of equipment on a brackish-water farm. That is why Amnuay chose the AIROFOG AT35, with its 100 percent stainless steel body.
10 reasons the AIROFOG AT35 thermal fogger solves it
1. A 100 percent stainless steel body that resists salt air and pond humidity
Brackish-water shrimp farms carry salt air that corrodes every piece of equipment quickly. Coated-metal and plastic machines commonly fail within a year or two. Full stainless construction is a necessity specifically for aquaculture operations.
2. Covers kilometres of pond margin in a short time
A 48-pond farm has several kilometres of margin in total, which is both the laying habitat and the resting habitat for midges and mosquitoes. The AIROFOG AT35's output lets two operators walk the entire farm's margins in about ninety minutes.
3. Treats the insects without affecting the shrimp
The critical point for aquaculture is managing insects without touching the stock or compromising GAP certification. The AT35 is used on pond margins, channels, rough vegetation and fence lines — never onto the culture water — so the shrimp and residue testing are unaffected.
4. Carried on foot along pond banks no vehicle can use
Shrimp pond banks are narrow and slippery in the rainy season, so a spray vehicle cannot reach most of the farm. The AT35 is light enough to be carried along the banks, including the treatment ponds and the boundary fence.
5. Treating the downwind fence line reduces the impact on the community
This is what most directly resolved the complaints. Concentrating the application on the fence line and tree line facing the village, before the evening breeze strengthens, significantly reduces the number of insects carried into the village.
6. It can also serve the community, turning adversaries into partners
A farm that owns its machine can offer to fog the neighbouring village, the community hall or the local school as appropriate. That is an extraordinarily low-cost investment in relationships against the risk of repeat complaints.
7. Runs both water-based and oil-based formulations
Aquaculture operations must choose chemistry with great care because of export standards and residue testing. Accepting both formulation types lets the farm use appropriate products as fisheries officers advise.
8. Built for daily use through the peak insect season
The peak midge and mosquito season runs for months, and the farm must fog daily through it. Machines designed for light duty begin failing in the first season. The AT35 is built for heavy continuous use, which is what a farm needs.
9. Compliant with Thai government standard equipment specifications
For aquaculture research and development centres, fisheries stations and community enterprise groups receiving support funding, conformity with the standard equipment schedule makes budgeting and acceptance straightforward.
10. A Thai service centre with genuine parts and 10-plus years of technician experience
Shrimp farms sit on the coast, often far from service networks. Domestic service and genuine parts mean fast turnaround — which matters greatly, because two weeks without fogging brings the complaints straight back.
Before the thermal fogger
- Three formal complaints to the sub-district administration in one year
- Villagers closing every window from five in the afternoon
- Two farm workers resigning, citing the midges directly
- Risk of a remediation or suspension order despite full licensing
- 20 million baht of shrimp in the ponds that cannot wait a single day
- Three years of strained relations with the village
After the thermal fogger
- No further complaints after three months
- Villagers opening their windows and sitting outside in the evening again
- No further resignations over insects
- The farm fogging the village weekly at its own expense
- The village head and sub-district administration now partners rather than adversaries
- Margin sediment removal and equipment tidying now standing farm routines
The three-step process
1. Survey the pond margins and deal with sediment and equipment
Walk the whole farm with the head worker, marking where organic sediment accumulates, channels that hold water, vegetation along the margins, and any equipment that can hold water — drums, tyres, cut pipe. Then remove the sediment, cut the vegetation and store or invert everything.
2. Fog daily from three to four in the afternoon, emphasising the downwind fence line
Begin around three, before the evening breeze strengthens and before the insects emerge. Cover the pond margins, channels and rough vegetation, with particular emphasis on the fence and tree line facing the village — the last barrier before the wind carries them out.
3. Communicate with the community and offer help
Tell the village head and the sub-district administration what the farm is doing, offer to fog the village, community hall or school at the farm's expense as appropriate, and log every application as evidence for any inspection. This changes the relationship faster than any explanation.
From someone who uses one
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Biting midges and mosquitoes: two problems needing different management
Aquaculture farms typically face two distinct insect groups requiring different approaches. The first is saltmarsh biting midges, so small they pass through ordinary insect screening, which lay in damp mud and organic sediment along pond margins rather than in still water as mosquitoes do.
Managing midges therefore means removing margin sediment, not allowing organic material to accumulate, and thinning the vegetation along the edges — alongside fogging to control the adults along the margins, which are the longest lines on the farm.
The second group is mosquitoes, which lay in still water with cover. The common sites on a shrimp farm are reservoir ponds, treatment ponds, poorly draining channels, and containers and equipment left lying about: plastic drums, tyres, cut PVC pipe and flat-bottomed boats not fully inverted.
Knowing which group your farm is dealing with matters enormously to planning. Many farms manage only the still water and find no improvement, because the insects troubling them are midges, which come from mud rather than water. Consult local fisheries or health officers to identify the species before planning.
Managing community relations is managing the farm's risk
The lesson Amnuay stresses most is that a large farm near a community carries a social risk that never appears in the financial statements but can genuinely stop the business — and that risk is manageable at very low cost if you act before something happens.
What has worked best in his experience is going to the community before the community comes to you: talking to the village head and sub-district administration periodically, saying what the farm is doing, and asking directly whether the farm is causing anyone difficulty.
Offering practical help carries far more weight than explanation — fogging the village or school weekly, helping with water in the dry season, hiring locally first. All are inexpensive and genuinely change the relationship.
And most important is keeping records: of the fogging, of meetings with the community, and of issues reported and fixed. That documentation is valuable under any inspection, because it demonstrates a systematic measure rather than a reaction to a complaint.
Frequently asked questions
Will fogging affect the shrimp in the ponds?
Not when applied correctly: on pond margins, channels, vegetation and fence lines, never directed onto the culture water surface. Fog with the wind carrying droplets away from the ponds, and consult fisheries officers on products suitable for a GAP-certified farm.
Will it affect buyers' residue testing?
With no application into the culture water and using properly registered products at label rates, the risk is very low. Log every application — date, time, area and product — so you can present it to buyers and auditors when required.
When should we fog?
Three to four in the afternoon is best, before the insects emerge and before the evening breeze strengthens, which most reduces the number carried into the village. Some farms add an early-morning application during the peak season.
How many machines does a farm of my size need?
Up to 20 ponds, one machine is enough. For 30 to 60 ponds, two, so the whole farm's margins are covered within about ninety minutes. Very large farms or those split across separate blocks should add accordingly.
How often should we fog?
Daily through the peak insect season and two to three times a week otherwise. Let your night workers' reports and any messages from the community drive the decision — they are the most direct signals you have.
How do we know whether our problem is midges or mosquitoes?
Ask local fisheries or health officers to identify the species, because management differs. Saltmarsh midges come from margin mud and organic sediment; mosquitoes come from still water. Identifying correctly means treating the right target and saving both time and chemical.
Should the farm fog the community as well?
Strongly recommended where feasible, because the cost is trivial against the risk of repeat complaints or a remediation order, and it turns an adversarial relationship into a cooperative one faster than any explanation. Coordinate through the village head and sub-district administration first.
What if the machine fails?
AIROFOG maintains a service centre and genuine parts in Thailand with technicians of more than 10 years' experience, so turnaround is fast. Larger farms should keep the common wear parts on site, because two weeks without fogging brings the complaints straight back.
Ten minutes in the village, against three years nobody spent standing there
The clearest lesson here is that we defend ourselves with legal facts without ever standing where the other person stands — and ten minutes in that spot said more than an entire file of documents.
A farm near a community carries a social risk that never appears in the accounts but can genuinely stop the business, and it is manageable at very low cost if handled before something happens.
Owning a thermal fogger is therefore not only insect management. It is a risk management tool and a relationship tool with the community the farm will live alongside for decades to come.
Talk to the World Health Disinfection team about a midge and mosquito control plan for your aquaculture farm — machine selection, chemistry, and a schedule that never touches the stock.
See the machine and pricing — click here
Call 065-556-6294 or add LINE @whd268
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Related keywords: thermal fogger, shrimp farm midge control, aquaculture pest control, AIROFOG AT35, biting midges, community relations
