VANCEBORO — Craven County prawn farmers Don and Kim Ipock stocked Carolina’s Freshwater Prawn Farm’s three ponds with juveniles last weekend to grow a fall harvest that has a committed buyer — a first in their seven-year aquaculture venture.
Economic development consultants hired this year by Craven County to help draft a strategic growth plan included aquaculture in a recent report building Craven’s agricultural offerings.
The Ipocks and Charlene Jacobs, president of the American Prawn Cooperative, agree it has real possibilities.
But for the Ipocks and other family farmers building the cooperative prawn marketing group since incorporating in 2008, it has not been easy.
Prawn are basically a freshwater shrimp belonging to the genus Macrobrachium, which have been farmed mostly in the rivers of Malaysia and Thailand for years and are now farmed in Hawaii, China, India, and many subtropical areas of the world.
Don Ipock boasts that his Spruill Town Road farm’s pond-raised, grain-fed, pollution and chemical-free prawn are environmentally friendly, of jumbo size and lobster-like texture, resulting in a clean and high quality meat. The controlled and free range environment also contributes to the quality and demand for the low in fat, iodine and sodium product.
Jacobs’ family will seed its two-pond prawn operation near Clinton in Sampson County this weekend, and she said, “We’ve had to do a lot of educating the public here just about what prawns are although we have clients in California, Chicago and New York who already know what a prawn is and who want it and need it.”
Cooperative Extension programs at N.C. State University and Mississippi State University have helped to research and develop the best prawn for regional production, Don Ipock said, and, along with the N.C. Department of Agriculture, guide owners of farms where tobacco was once its cash crop to transition to a new crop.
The cooperative members help each other with various parts of production, including the harvesting and together have used rural development grant money to build a processing center in Walstonsburg in Greene County to fast-freeze the catch.
“I recently returned from a California trip to a Monterey Bay Aquarium seafood show representing the cooperative as the liaison to a broker, who is originally from North Carolina,” Ipock said. “Part of our agreement with him was to have visits to put a face on the product.”
He continued, “The overall objective of the California trip was to establish relationship with Del Monte Meat Company to strengthen relationships through the event that they invited area restaurant chefs to attend and a number of vendors who carry their product, there, in New York and around the country.”
Jacobs said there are other prawn farms in the area.
“We could have had more farms but are very particular,” Jacobs said. “We don’t need anyone who won’t follow our best management practices. It’s very strategic in harvesting and processing.”
Setting up the business, cost-wise, is small-scale enough that it is possible for smaller farmers, he said.
“The cost is within the thousands, rather than millions of dollars,” Jacobs said.
In part, the attraction to become a prawn farmer is because the cost could allow some small farms that lost tobacco allotment money to remain in farming. There is also the ecological impact of freshwater prawn farming has less waste products than some other animal agricultural and even aquaculture operations so the water can be recycled.
Jacobs said that although the less densely populated prawn ponds produce less waste and produce fewer numbers, but they grow a bigger prawn.
The commitment Ipock brought back from California brokers is they will take every prawn they can grow that are 12-count to a pound or bigger.
“We are not interested in mega numbers, because we now have the California market and we also have buyers in New York who want to come and get them live off the pond bank,” Jacobs said.
There are several restaurants and bed and breakfast operations that are steady local buyers and APC member farmers are hoping they continue to buy and spread the word locally about this relatively new domestic crop.
Although temperatures are not consistently warm enough for more than one crop a year in Eastern North Carolina, Jacobs said, “our harvest is growing yearly. 2012 was our best year yet.”
Of the 16 two-acre ponds stocked, she said, “Each should produce at least 800 to 1,000 pounds per acre,” or a total of about 29,000 pounds.
They are hoping for warm weather and an even better crop this year.
Sue Book can be reached at 252-635-5665 or sue.book@newbernsj.com. Follow her on Twitter@SueJBook.