Center seeks to enhance shrimp production
By Eloise Aguiar
Advertiser Windward O'ahu Writer
WAIMANALO — Around the world, billions of dollars worth of farmed shrimp die annually because of disease and poor environmental conditions, but a new facility at Makapu'u Point could revolutionize the industry and give U.S. farmers a competitive edge.
Photo courtesy of Oceanic Institute
At 10 a.m. today, Oceanic Institute will dedicate its new Nucleus Breeding Center for Marine Shrimp, a facility that will allow the institute to expand its research in a biosecure facility that guards against outside diseases and eliminates the need to dump used seawater back into the ocean.
Bead filters clean saltwater in the shrimp production system at the Oceanic Institute's new shrimp farm so wastewater doesn't have to be dumped into the ocean.
"There are no other facilities like it in the world," said Dr. Thomas E. Farewell, president and chief executive officer of the institute. "This facility heralds a new era in marine shrimp research and serves as a model for future biosecure shrimp production facilities."
The $2 million building, built with federal money, occupies more than 8,900 square feet.
The technology developed here could mean millions of dollars annually to U.S. shrimp farmers, including Hawai'i farmers who grow broodstock for other farmers, said Dr. Shaun M. Moss, director of shrimp technology at the institute.
Developing countries have had the majority of shrimp farms because labor and land costs are cheap and there are few environmental regulations, Moss said. It is hoped the systems developed at the institute can help U.S. growers catch up.
Photo courtesy of Oceanic Institute
The technology addresses two critical issues: diseases and used water.
The Nucleus Breeding Center for Marine Shrimp will be dedicated today at the Oceanic Institute's Makapu'u site.
For about seven years Oceanic Institute has been involved with genetic improvement of each generation of shrimp through selective breeding. The goal has been to breed for commercially desirable traits such as rapid growth and disease resistance, Moss said.
To date, the work has taken place in ponds and tanks exposed to air- and water-borne pathogens.
But with the new building, those problems are resolved by enclosed growing areas and by cleaning and recirculating seawater, Moss said.
Recirculating the water eliminates the chance of discharging pollutants into the ocean and reduces the chances alien shrimp will be released into the sea, he said.
"In fact, the shrimp production system we're developing here is so self-contained that theoretically it could be put in Kansas, Ohio or in the Midwest," Moss said. "They're not locked into the coastal environment because they are self-sustaining."
The need for research and development is compelling, said Dr. Anthony C. Ostrowski, director of the U.S. Marine Shrimp Farming Consortium.
Americans eat 1 billion pounds of shrimp a year, but domestic production lags that of Asia and Latin America.
"Shrimp is now the most-consumed seafood product in the U.S., surpassing canned tuna fish," Ostrowski said. "It is also the single most imported seafood, with 2001 imports valued at $3.8 billion and accounting for 37 percent of the total seafood imports in 2001."
Reach Eloise Aguiar at eaguiar@honoluluadvertiser.com or 234-5266.
