Canada's Ministry of Aquaculture issues license to Poseiden Aqua Bio for shrimp farming

By Matthew Claxton
The Langley Advance

A former greenhouse in south Langley will soon become the supplier of up to 40 tonnes of tropical shrimp per year.

The Ministry of Agriculture issued an aquaculture license last week to Poseidon Aqua Bio to create Langley's first shellfish facility on 4th Avenue, south of Campbell Valley Regional Park.

Poseidon plans to convert the large abandoned greenhouses into tanks, filled with artificial seawater. Inside those closed tanks, whiteleg shrimp, imported in larval form from Hawaii, will be raised to maturity.

The process will be environmentally friendly because the water used will be treated on site and recycled, with no runoff, a company representative said.

The indoor culture system is a relatively new technology, which will be able to operate year round regardless of the weather. Greenhouses were chosen because they will protect the tanks from insects, birds or animal contamination.

One of the existing greenhouses on the site will be used for raising the shrimp, while another will be used as a lab to check the shrimp for genetic diseases. Those that have genetic problems will be separated out of the culture tanks.

Because whiteleg shrimp are an exotic species to B.C., the Ministry of Agriculture did a risk analysis and found that with a land-based system, the risk was low that the shrimp could escape to the wild or threaten local fish or shellfish stocks. The shrimp can grow a little larger than tiger prawns.

The firm is a subsidiary of a Taiwan-based firm which already farms in both open-pen systems in Malaysia and in closed-containment facilities in Taiwan. The five-acre Taiwanese facilities produce 30 tonnes of shrimp per month. The firm has already mapped the genome of the whiteleg shrimp, and can use genetic markers to select their shrimp for growth and disease resistance.

When the operation is running at full production, it will employ between 50 and 100 people and produce up to 40 tonnes of shrimp per year. The firm expects to have a grand opening in about three months. The only previous aquaculture operations in Langley have been trout farms.

mclaxton@langleyadvance.com