USMSFP - U.S. Marine Shrimp Farming Program

When Jackson Currie began raising saltwater shrimp more than two years ago near Wilmot, he was so unsure about the experiment that he referred to the endeavor as "my science project."

Now, convinced that the business is viable, Currie has gathered 16 partners and formed Inland Natural Seafood LLC. The company name remains subject to a final check with secretaries of state outside Arkansas, he said.
"What I’m doing this year is up a notch from what I’ve done in the last two years," Currie said. In about a month he expects to harvest approximately 50,000 pounds of Pacific white shrimp, compared with 5,000 pounds in 2003 and an initial 8,000-pound harvest in 2002.

An integral part of Inland’s initial marketing plan will be "the natural-food angle," Currie said. "We are not using any growth hormones, any antibiotics or any preservatives on our shrimp, and we are trying to grow something that’s a very healthy product."
Little Rock restaurateur Peter Brave, one of Inland’s partners, will be in charge of marketing the company’s shrimp, which will be sold under the brand name Brave New Shrimp.

Brave said shrimp fits well with his own business, Brave New Restaurant, especially "the whole natural aspect of it."

" I kept looking for reasons why not to do it," he said, referring to his decision to become an Inland partner, "and reasons why to do it kept popping up."
Brave, whose restaurant now sells about 3,000 pounds of shrimp annually, plans to feature Inland’s shrimp on his menus. The Pacific whites taste just like Gulf shrimp, he said. "They’re just beautiful, and I’m looking forward to them."
Inland Natural Seafood is talking with several processors, one of which will be contracted to wash, de-head, individually quick-freeze and box the company’s 2004 shrimp harvest. Currie expects to sell most of this year’s crop in Arkansas.
Inland partner Cindy Greene, who also is president of Little Rock-based Newmarket Sales Associates, a natural foods broker, said Ozark Co-Op Warehouse in Fayetteville will distribute Inland’s products throughout Arkansas.

Little Rock consumers, she said, should be able to purchase the 2004 crop of Brave New Shrimp at Terry’s Finer Foods at 5018 Kavanaugh Blvd. or from Hardin Family Farms, which plans to open a permanent store next month in the Little Rock Farmers Market.

Besides taste, Brave also is excited about the environmental aspects of Inland’s production.

" People are very concerned about what they eat and how that is raised and how it impacts on everything," he said.

Tom Harding, president of AgriSystems International in Wind Gap, Penn., said his decision to invest in Inland was simple. "I’m committed to converting every conventional farm system I can to natural and organic farming methodologies, and there’s no place better to start than in aquatic systems, because we’ve just about farmed out all of our wild fisheries."

Another Inland investor, Martha Melkovitz, who co-owns Keo Fish Farm, said she wanted to be involved with the new shrimp venture because she "would hate for something to go by that we missed."

Melkovitz knew Currie because his 15-year-old Small Fry Fish Farm in Wilmot buys tiny hybrid striped bass from her hatchery and raises them to fingerlings.

LOW SALINITY

Inland partner Jeff Bayer, a biologist who oversees Inland’s shrimp production, said the company has pushed inland shrimp farming to new records of low salinity.
Whereas sea water averages 30 parts per thousand salinity, Inland is raising the marine animals in water of only 1 to 1.5 parts per thousand.

Chad King, a graduate student with the Environmental Research Lab at the University of Arizona in Tucson, said water salinity at Arizona’s four shrimp farms range from 1.5 to 10 parts per thousand. They produce about 300,000 pounds of shrimp annually.
"They’ve had good success in growing their shrimp, but it’s been harder to market them," King said. Desert Sweet Shrimp, in Gila Bend, Ariz., sells much of its production through a Phoenix cafe, he said.

Bayer said Inland’s 2004 crop began with a late-May purchase of 2.5 million post-larvae shrimp from a hatchery in the Florida keys, one of only two such hatcheries certified as "diseasefree." Over a two-day period, the crustaceans were habituated to low-salinity Arkansas pond water before spending their first two weeks in two nursery ponds located about five miles east of Portland.

About 1.7 million tiny shrimp were transferred from the nursery ponds, Bayer said, to four, nearby 6-acre production ponds. The harvest, which is driven by falling water temperatures, should begin Sept. 20 and conclude Oct. 1, he said.

30,000 POUNDS OF TAILS

Currie said this year’s anticipated 50,000-pound harvest of Pacific white shrimp should yield about 30,000 pounds of tails, the edible portion, and he expects the crustaceans will be large enough to yield 21-to-25 tails per pound.

" We were actually hoping for ‘16-20s’ — it looks like we’re not going to get to that," he said.
Arkansas’ only other inland shrimp farmer, Richard Tindall, expects to produce about 45,000 pounds of Pacific whites this year on Sandybrook Farms in McGehee. In his fifth year of production, Tindall said he continues to learn about all aspects of the shrimp business. He has even begun experimenting with indoor shrimp farming, which could provide a year-round supply of shrimp.

About 90 percent of Sandybrook’s shrimp is sold directly to chefs in Arkansas, Tennessee and Missouri, Tindall said, with the balance going to small grocery stores.
"We have a good market in St. Louis," he said, adding that major selling points include the good taste of his shrimp and their relative lack of smell.