Robins McIntosh is Executive Vice President, Charoen Pokphand Foods (CPF) Public Company, Thailand. He has been involved in shrimp aquaculture for over 30 years, having lived and worked in Brazil, Hawaii, Myanmar, Philippines, Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, India, and Thailand. His projects have spanned the development of grow-out systems, shrimp feeds, and hatchery technologies. Robins was responsible for developing the first zero water exchange, intensive and revolutionary shrimp farm, i.e. Belize Aquaculture, Ltd in Belize. Prior to Belize he worked as a technical consultant to both Zeigler Brothers in the development of advanced P. vannamei diets and with several large farms in Guatemala, Mexico and Honduras. His initial work in shrimp aquaculture was with the freshwater prawn Macrobrachium, being employed as a researcher with Weyerhaeuser in Florida and Brazil. Shrimp was interrupted for four years as he took on responsibilities of developing and managing the algae to fuel program for the U.S. DOE (Solar Energy Research Institute). Shrimp and Macrobrachium projects in Myanmar brought him back to Asia, where he later was involved in the development and management of Thai Hawaiian Hatcheries in Thailand. Robins is currently employed as Executive Vice President for technical development of shrimp culture within the Charoen Pokphand Group. He joined the Group in 2001 to assist with the restructuring of shrimp culture in Thailand and Southeast Asia. Under his direction, hatcheries were modernized, genetic programs were initiated, and farm management was made more systematic and biosecure. Robins continues to work on increasing the efficiency of shrimp culture and finding solutions to eradicate EMS/APHND and EHP diseases in shrimp. He is today also CEO of Home Grown Shrimp, a US subsidiary of CPF focussed on producing shrimp in indoor facilities in the USA.
