North Carolina’s Carteret Community College takes a chance on bait-shrimp aquaculture MOREHEAD CITY – In a tank inside the aquaculture facility at Carteret Community College swim shrimp caught by students in a cast net earlier this year. Source:
They are keeping the shrimp under the scenario that they will be able to sell the live bait for a good price for midwinter fishing, said Skip Kemp, who coordinates the aquaculture program for the college.
“We’re holding them beyond the time they are normally prevalent in the water,” Kemp said.
While only a classroom exercise, in the process of trying to keep the shrimp alive the students will develop feed and growing systems, knowledge the students can carry with them into the future, Kemp said.
It’s a future Kemp said he believes holds great promise for shrimp farming, but one he also believes may be a long way off.
“I do see it as a good growth area,” Kemp said.
Shrimp is America’s favorite seafood, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service, and Americans consumed an average of 4.2 pounds of shrimp per person in 2004.
To meet this growing demand, the United States has turned to imported shrimp, which now accounts for nearly 90 percent of all the shrimp consumed in this country. Much of the imported shrimp is farm-raised, Kemp said.
“The balance of trade is stimulus for economic development,” he said.
The state of South Carolina has sponsored research on growing shrimp in greenhouses and has worked out much of the biological productivity needs, Kemp said.
“Now they’re working on the economic feasibility,” Kemp said.
That could be where the problems will lay, said Preston Pate, director of the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries. Many of the large shrimp-importing countries have an inexpensive labor force, too.
“There’s a good chance that the imported farm-raised shrimp would be cheaper than the domestic farm-raised shrimp,” Pate said.
But Pate, too, has hopes that shrimp farming could develop in North Carolina.
“I would like to think there is an option for aquaculture to get involved in this and try to offset some of the market control that the foreign imports have on the total U.S. market for shrimp,” Pate said
Many in the wild shrimp industry would likely oppose such an idea, seeing it as further competition, Pate said. But the nation’s demand for shrimp is so high that it is not practical to think that the wild harvest can meet it, where farm-raised shrimp might, he said.
“I think everybody would prefer to bolster the U.S. economy,” Pate said.
North Carolina’s Department of Agriculture has staff devoted to aquaculture, but Pate said he does not know if there are any plans to more aggressively promote shrimp farming. Kemp said North Carolina has simply not yet placed emphasis on mariculture, as some other states have.
For now, Kemp’s aquaculture program is relying heavily on the research done in South Carolina as it gets its own experience in handling shrimp.
“We’re not really in a position yet where we could encourage someone to get into shrimp farming,” Kemp said.
Patricia Smith
Jacksonville, N.C.
North Carolina’s Carteret Community College takes a chance on bait-shrimp aquaculture
MOREHEAD CITY – In a tank inside the aquaculture facility at Carteret Community College swim shrimp caught by students in a cast net earlier this year.
They are keeping the shrimp under the scenario that they will be able to sell the live bait for a good price for midwinter fishing, said Skip Kemp, who coordinates the aquaculture program for the college.
“We’re holding them beyond the time they are normally prevalent in the water,” Kemp said.
While only a classroom exercise, in the process of trying to keep the shrimp alive the students will develop feed and growing systems, knowledge the students can carry with them into the future, Kemp said.
It’s a future Kemp said he believes holds great promise for shrimp farming, but one he also believes may be a long way off.
“I do see it as a good growth area,” Kemp said.
Shrimp is America’s favorite seafood, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service, and Americans consumed an average of 4.2 pounds of shrimp per person in 2004.
To meet this growing demand, the United States has turned to imported shrimp, which now accounts for nearly 90 percent of all the shrimp consumed in this country. Much of the imported shrimp is farm-raised, Kemp said.
“The balance of trade is stimulus for economic development,” he said.
The state of South Carolina has sponsored research on growing shrimp in greenhouses and has worked out much of the biological productivity needs, Kemp said.
“Now they’re working on the economic feasibility,” Kemp said.
That could be where the problems will lay, said Preston Pate, director of the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries. Many of the large shrimp-importing countries have an inexpensive labor force, too.
“There’s a good chance that the imported farm-raised shrimp would be cheaper than the domestic farm-raised shrimp,” Pate said.
But Pate, too, has hopes that shrimp farming could develop in North Carolina.
“I would like to think there is an option for aquaculture to get involved in this and try to offset some of the market control that the foreign imports have on the total U.S. market for shrimp,” Pate said
Many in the wild shrimp industry would likely oppose such an idea, seeing it as further competition, Pate said. But the nation’s demand for shrimp is so high that it is not practical to think that the wild harvest can meet it, where farm-raised shrimp might, he said.
“I think everybody would prefer to bolster the U.S. economy,” Pate said.
North Carolina’s Department of Agriculture has staff devoted to aquaculture, but Pate said he does not know if there are any plans to more aggressively promote shrimp farming. Kemp said North Carolina has simply not yet placed emphasis on mariculture, as some other states have.
For now, Kemp’s aquaculture program is relying heavily on the research done in South Carolina as it gets its own experience in handling shrimp.
“We’re not really in a position yet where we could encourage someone to get into shrimp farming,” Kemp said.
Source:
Patricia Smith
Jacksonville, N.C.