USMSFP - U.S. Marine Shrimp Farming Program

In November, biologists with the S.C. Department of Natural Resources harvested about 4,000 pounds of shrimp from a greenhouse at their Waddell Mariculture Center in Bluffton.

The shrimp were raised in what DNR calls a super-intensive greenhouse production system. Using a water filtration system, the shrimp grow in a climate-controlled environment inside the greenhouse until they are ready to be harvested.

Now with its fourth harvest, biologists have increased the amount of shrimp produced with each subsequent trial. And the shrimp are not only abundant, they are large in size at an estimated 17 shrimp per pound.

“The shrimp we are harvesting are almost double the size of similar shrimp in most pond-based mariculture farms,” says Dr. Craig Browdy, senior marine scientist and shrimp culture specialist for DNR. “These shrimp are also being contained at about 10 times the normal density. There could almost be 20 pounds of shrimp per cubic meter of water.”

The Waddell Mariculture Center is a member of the U.S. Marine Shrimp Farming Program, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The goal of the research is to develop shrimp farming technology to compete with the almost one billion pound per year import market in the United States.

“The demand for shrimp is so high—around four pounds per person per year in the United States,” says Browdy. This translates to well over 16 million pounds of shrimp per year consumed by South Carolina’s citizens alone, and means increasing the availability of shrimp is a highly marketable prospect.

DNR has seen enormous interest from both farmers and entrepreneurs, and invites interested parties to come see how the technology works. However, Browdy warns that a greenhouse system is not for the faint of heart. “You have to develop a system to a certain scale to make it economical, and that level of investment is about $5 million to $10 million.”

Mills Rooks, CEO of the new Ocean’s Bounty Management Group in Beaufort, is in the process of developing a commercially viable application based on Waddell’s research. “It is designed to put South Carolina on the map for shrimp production,” he says.

In 1985, when DNR began researching aquaculture, Rooks followed their progress with a great deal of interest. “At the time it was not a high tech operation, but an open farm system, which is being used all over the Third World to produce all this shrimp we’re importing.” His research showed that the high land and labor costs of an open pond system and a single annual crop were not economically feasible in South Carolina. “After exhausting a year, I realized it wasn’t going to be profitable and backed off,” he says.

But Rooks subscribed to aquacultural periodicals and continued his Internet research, and when the center made its breakthrough in super intensive shrimp farming two years ago, he renewed his efforts. “The greenhouse-enclosed, environmentally-friendly system became commercially viable. Shrimp could be produced with multiple crops per year and with a price and quality that could compete with imports,” says Rooks. In the process of funding the $8 million to $10 million private project, Rooks says Ocean’s Bounty is already in the design phase.

The success of the Waddell Mariculture Center’s advanced production system is partially due to the use of genetically-selected, fast-growing, pathogen-free shrimp species. “Usually in mariculture, you hit a wall where the growth just stops, and we haven’t hit that wall yet with these shrimp,” says Al Stokes, DNR biologist and manager of the center. Biologists have continuously increased the size of the shrimp and the carrying capacity of the ponds.

The bio-secure greenhouse re-uses water three times, so no potentially contaminated water enters the system and no waste exits into the environment.

The local shrimp farming industry produces mostly a pond-raised product, but coastal property values are high enough that it is unlikely people would be able to invest in large tracts of coastal property in the future. Since there is no water exchange in a greenhouse system, a person wouldn’t have to live on the coast in order to sustain this type of business. Farmed shrimp are tropical species, but in a temperature-controlled greenhouse, farmers can produce three to four crops per year rather than one—at least four million pounds per year instead of only one million.

The center’s biologists help farmers set up their greenhouse structure and choose vendors and equipment. “We explain the risk of increasing stocking rates, help with diet information and vendors. South Carolina has very strict regulations on the importation of non-indigenous crustaceans, and we can help them find a hatchery that has been approved,” says Stokes.

When DNR harvests shrimp, companies interested in purchasing the shrimp are able to submit bids over a specified period of time. The highest bidder in November purchased the product for $1.90 per pound, which did not justify the $2 per pound production cost spent by the department. “If anyone wants to make this into a business, more research has to be done to decrease the cost of production per pound,” says Browdy.

DNR thinks that innovative marketing will be the key to super-intensive greenhouse shrimp farming. Stokes says, “Farmers can offer a superior product. Year-round shrimp growers can offer fresh, head-on shrimp of any size to high end restaurants. In many cases, buyers can get shrimp that has never been frozen. We’ve never had that in the continental United States. Fresh shrimp is usually seasonal.”

Because the competition is from imported products, the DNR technology could create jobs in the state. And if the technology can be developed to work away from the coast, it could create jobs in places in the state that need them most, such as Jasper and Colleton counties.