Oceanic Institute shrimp program eager to share its high-yielding, drug-free, earth-friendly technology

By Curtis Lum
The Honolulu Advertiser

MAKAPU'U — New research into raising rapid-growing, disease-resistant shrimp is bearing fruit for a nonprofit group hoping to jumpstart a declining industry.

Researchers at the Oceanic Institute say their methods have produced large quantities of market-quality shrimp in an environmentally safe setting. They're hoping their record harvest will encourage aquaculture farmers to embrace their technology.

One local vendor who is selling the shrimp is encouraged by what he's seen.

The shrimp is being sold as "Makapu'u Gold Shrimp" at Tamashiro Market in Palama at $5.98 a pound, with the heads on.

Guy Tamashiro said this is the first time his family's store has carried the Oceanic Institute shrimp. Previously, most of the shrimp he carried was frozen and imported.

"It's a beautiful shrimp," Tamashiro said. "It has good size, fair price and it's a fresh product."

Since Wednesday, the institute has been harvesting shrimp grown in a tank at the Makapu'u research facility for the past 14 weeks.

In previous harvests, the institute collected about 1,000 pounds of shrimp. But by the time the current harvest ends next Thursday, researchers expect to have scooped more than 9,000 pounds of shrimp out of the tank.

The researchers have used selective breeding to come up with a shrimp that can survive in densely populated waters, a key feature in increasing production.

Most existing farms raise shrimp in concentrations of about 80 per square meter of water, but the capacity at Oceanic Institute is more than 800 shrimp per square meter, said Shaun Moss, director of the shrimp department.

The shrimp were placed in the 0.08-acre tank when they were about a half gram and harvested when they reached about 20 grams. That translates to "medium" shrimp, or 21 to 25 count in stores.

Moss said Oceanic is working on a proposal with a company on Kaua'i and also one in Virginia to buy the technology. He hopes more U.S. companies will get on the bandwagon because of the long-term implications of the shrimp technology.

"The per-capita consumption in the U.S. is 4.2 pounds, so there's a huge domestic demand for shrimp product," he said. "But the domestic supply is very small. and most of the shrimp comes from overseas. That creates a $3 billion federal trade deficit, so there are strong incentives on a number of fronts to develop a domestic shrimp-farming industry."

Moss said creating a strong U.S. shrimp industry is even more important in light of this week's ban by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on some farm-raised fish and shrimp from China because of unsafe levels of drugs.

No drugs or chemicals are used on the shrimp at the Oceanic Institute, he said.

Moss said said one major drawback for commercial shrimp farmers is the high cost of creating their own stock. But Moss said Oceanic Institute already has produced the stock, and all it would take would be for a company to purchase it and the technology.

Because the Oceanic Institute technology requires a small amount of space and relies on minimal water exchange, it will save farmers in the long run, he said.

"If we can transfer this technology to a few of the private companies in the United States and people see that it's a viable business, then we'll see more and more players in the market because we really want to reduce the amount of imported shrimp," he said. "We want to ensure that the United States consumer is getting a quality product, antibiotic and growth-hormone free."

Of the 9,000 pounds that are expected to be harvested, 7,000 will be sold to a local distributor and in turn sold to local and Mainland markets. The remainder is being sold to smaller distributors, Moss said.

Moss would not disclose the distributors or the price that Oceanic is getting per pound of shrimp. He did say that the proceeds will be returned to the shrimp program.

Shrimp farming in Hawai'i is a small industry, with less than $3 million in annual sales and making up just 10 percent of the value of the state's aquaculture industry, according to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service Hawai'i Field Office.

In 2005, there were 10 farms here that produced shrimp valued at $2.76 million, compared with 12 farms in 1998 with sales of $1.7 million.

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