Free News March 24, 2006

At "Aquaculture America 2006", the recent (February 2006) World Aquaculture Society Meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, I interviewed Mills Rooks, CEO of Ocean's Bounty Seafarms, LLC, a South Carolina Limited Liability Company formed to commercialize the shrimp production technology developed by the Waddell Mariculture Center (WMC) in South Carolina and others.

On January 17, 2006, an Ocean's Bounty Seafarms' news release said: The purchase of a 23-acre property in northeast Jasper County, South Carolina, at Deloss Point on Taylor's Creek, will allow for the construction of a commercial biosecure, super-intensive closed-loop shrimp production facility. This ecologically friendly facility will allow for the year-round production of high-quality jumbo shrimp, a "Product of South Carolina", that's disease, chemical and drug-free. The goal of the company is to become the premier producer of farmed shrimp in the United States.

WMC researchers have demonstrated an environmentally friendly "closed-loop" production system in which shrimp can be produced at high densities on a year-round production schedule. This system utilizes lined, biosecure raceways covered by greenhouses and intensive water management techniques. In real-time research utilizing a pilot facility, WMC has produced the equivalent of approximately 60,000 pounds of shrimp per acre per crop. Depending on the size of the animal produced, three to four crops per year are possible.

Shrimp News: Where did you go to college?

Mills Rooks: Georgia Tech, majored in industrial engineering, specializing in plant layout and facilities design. I also spent many years in the securities industry, primarily with Merrill Lynch, which was a financial education in itself.

Shrimp News: How much help did you get from Waddell?

Mills Rooks: The support of Waddell will be critical for this project to succeed. Waddell has really gone out of its way to help me make this project successful. I want to put South Carolina on the map with our shrimp. Once we get the kinks worked out of our system, we can put it anywhere in the country.

Shrimp News: Now that you have a site? What's your next step?

Mills Rooks: We are raising $3 million from private investors through a private placement offering, with which we shall build the first production systems. This initial facility is planned to consist of 16 production modules, which will be expanded to 64 when the site is fully built out. Once the technical concept is proven commercially, we will proceed to the next level and begin to move the production units inland. I'll begin to look at franchising the concept at that level, possibly doing some joint ventures, basically trying to find the best vehicle for growing the company.

Shrimp News: When will you have the $3 million in your pocket?

Mills Rooks: My financial guy is telling me in the next two to four weeks. We are in negotiations at this time.

Shrimp News: Are you adding any new wrinkles to the Waddell super-intensive technology?

Mills Rooks: We're using Waddell's basic technology, but the mechanical systems that we have designed and engineered to implement that technology technically change it into a proprietary water management system. The way our circulation, oxygenation and aeration systems are set up is unique to our system. We will have to do some supplemental heating. I am designing the greenhouses to take advantage of solar energy, but there will still be a few weeks out of the year when we will have to do some supplemental heating with a backup boiler system.

Shrimp News: Where will you get your postlarvae?

Mills Rooks: At some point, we're going to have to build our own hatchery, or do a joint venture with someone. Because of the size of the beast I'm building, I can't afford to run out of PLs. When the initial site is fully built out, I will be restocking five days a week, 52 weeks a year. I have visited Shrimp Improvements Systems, a shrimp hatchery in Florida, to talk about seedstock. It will be our initial source of seedstock.

Shrimp News: What about shrimp feeds.

Mills Rooks: We're looking at all the shrimp feed manufactures in the United States. Waddell has been using different feed manufacturers successfully, and their results have been fairly consistent. Ultimately, we may operate our own feed mill where we may be able to use some shrimp and agriculture byproducts to make some of our own feeds. We also plan to get into shrimp processing.

Shrimp News: What do you plan to use for aeration?

Mills Rooks: That's proprietary. I will say that we have a system that does circulation, oxygenation and aeration in one stroke. It's a system that will allow us to fine-tune the microbial and algal balance in the system. The "floc" makes or breaks our system. If the floc system is maintained correctly, our feed costs go down dramatically. We plan to use real-time probes in the raceways so that we can implement adjustments to water management as the raceway water parameters change. If we need more oxygen, we will do it automatically, from the office computer, and we should be able to that with any number of water quality variables.

Shrimp News: How big is one of your greenhouse modules?

Mills Rooks: Each greenhouse will house an eighty-foot by ninety-six-foot raceway, and each raceway will have a dividing barrier down its middle, around which the water will flow in a counter-clockwise direction.

Shrimp News: How will you harvest?

Mills Rooks: We're going to use a fish pump harvesting system. Basically, the water level will be lowered until the shrimp accumulate in the deep end of the raceway. We'll pump out the shrimp and return the water to the system.

Shrimp News: What are you going to use to circulate the water around the center divider in the raceways?

Mills Rooks: That's also proprietary. I will say that there will be a system of "headers and spreaders" on the bottom of the raceways that will keep all the organic matter in suspension and circulating. I'm set up with Air Liquide to provide bulk oxygen for a backup system so that if we have a crash, we can inject oxygen into any of the units. As engineered, however, we may never need supplemental oxygen during the growout phase.

Shrimp News: What about employees, technicians, people to man the different positions in the company.

Mills Rooks: Waddell has an intern program where they train college level people for projects like mine, and we plan to rely on them and some universities at the beginning.

Shrimp News: Tell me about the site. Is it on an estuary?

Mills Rooks: We're located in Jasper County, in the southeastern corner of the state, on an estuary called Boyd's Creek, part of the Broad River system. We have good salinity, 28 to 30 parts per thousand at high tide. We'll filter that water, either ozonate it or hit it with UV, and then use it to fill our raceways. Since we will be recirculating all our water, we'll only have to top off after that.

Shrimp News: When the $3 million arrives, are you ready to begin construction?

Mills Rooks: I'm hoping to get something started by the end of this quarter. Next week, I'm going to start clearing the site for construction.

Shrimp News: How long will it take to get some of your modules up and producing shrimp?

Mills Rooks: It's a construction project; you never know, usually longer than expected, but we want to start right away and proceed as planned. If everything goes according to schedule, we could have some shrimp in the water by late summer.

Shrimp News: How are you going to market your product?

Mills Rooks: I'm talking with major supermarket chains that are into seafood sustainability, traceability and USA product, hoping to get them involved as a strategic partner. We believe that we can ultimately earn an "Organically Produced" designation from the USDA. That, plus the "Product of the USA" label should be a plus for pricing and sales.

Information: Mills Rooks, CEO, Ocean's Bounty Seafarms, LLC, 3035 Mink Point Blvd., Beaufort, SC 29902 USA (phone 843-770-0068, email npcm601@yahoo.com, webpage www.oceansbountyseafarms.com).

Conference Information: John Cooksey, World Aquaculture Conference Management, 2423 Fallbrook Place, Escondido, CA 92027 USA (phone 760-432-4270, fax 760-432-4275, email worldaqua@aol.com, webpage www.was.org).

Sources: 1. Mills Rooks, interview by Bob Rosenberry, Shrimp News International. Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. February 15, 2006. 2. Press Release. Ocean's Bounty Seafarms. Ocean's Bounty Seafarms, LLC, Purchases Its First Commercial Shrimp Production Site in Northeast Jasper County, SC, on Taylor's Creek. January 17, 2006.

Bangladesh
Wants Partner

We are looking for a foreign partner to launch an intensive shrimp farming project in southwest Bangladesh.

Information: Shimon Rayhan Meftu (email.mizanwic@s5.dion.ne.jp), Director, Sunderbans Agro-Fisheries Initiative (SAFI), Garaikhali Bazar, P.O. Box Garaikhali, Khulna District, # 9285, Bangladesh.

Source: The Shrimp List (a mailing list for shrimp farmers, "shrimp-subscribe@yahoogroups.com"). Subject: Re: [shrimp] Looking for foreign partner for shrimp culture. From: Shimon Rayhan Meftu. March 12, 2006.

Guatemala/Honduras
Strategic Alliance

On February 16, 2006, farmed-shrimp producers Ladex, LLC (Guatemala), and Sea Farms International, Ltd. (Honduras), announced a strategic alliance. The integrated company will become one of the largest suppliers of farm-raised and value-added shrimp products in Central and South America.

Combined, the Ladex/Sea Farms facilities will total 220,000 square feet of processing space, 25,000 acres of shrimp farms, two hatcheries, a state-of-the-art feed mill, 33 trawlers and 10 million pounds of cold-storage capacity.

Ladex President Domingo Moreira, III, says his company is now the exclusive marketing arm for three major shrimp producers: Ladex, Sea Farms and Aqua Group, which is based in Guatemala. Together, the three companies will produce more than 75 million pounds of shrimp annually.

Moreira says: "We can now offer twice as much product from a very reliable source. We give U.S. customers supply straight from the source, no middleman."

Ladex, based in Miami, Florida, USA, also has sales offices in Tampa, Florida, and Madrid, Spain. About half of the company's business is in Europe, Moreira says. Ladex's brands include Maya and Sunday's Best value-added shrimp products. The company also has alliances in Belize, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Panama and Mexico.

Sea Farms International, based in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, owns the San Bernardo brand of value-added shrimp products.

In an interview that appeared in World Shrimp Farming 2005, I asked Bill More, a shrimp farming and processing plant consultant and vice president of the Aquaculture Certification Council, the following question:

Shrimp News: You've done some work in Guatemala recently. What's going on there?

Bill More: About a year ago, the Esteromar/Tecojate Group, managed by Scott Horton and owned by Jose Louis Valdes and other investors, combined their three farms with the Ladex Group's two farms to become the Aqua Group. Now the industry is dominated by two large groups that produce 90% of the farmed shrimp. The Aqua Group, made up of the Esteromar farm and four other farms, is the larger of the two. It has 670 hectares of ponds, accounting for about 58% of the pond space in the country. The Mayasal Group, managed by Alexander deBeausset, is the other big farm. It has 360 hectares. The total number of hectares in production dropped in 2004 when Lumar ceased operations, but total production has increased because of intensification. From less than 1,200 hectares of ponds, Guatemala produced approximately 20 million pounds of whole shrimp in 2004.

Shrimp News: Is Guatemala still exporting whole animals to Europe?

Bill More: Yes, that's still true. I would say that 90 percent of its production goes to Europe and almost all of it is heads-on. When Guatemala sells into the United States, it's almost always a specialty or further processed product or something other than a whole animal.

Sources: 1. SeaFood Business (www.seafoodbusiness.com). Editor, Fiona Robinson (frobinson@divcom.com). Late News: Ladex, Sea Farms International join forces. V-25, N-3, P-5, March 2006. 2. World Shrimp Farming 2005. Shrimp Farming in the Western Hemisphere. Shrimp News Interviews Bill More. October 2005.

India
Tito Gang Members Arrested, But Not Tito

On March 14, 2006, five members of the notorious Tito Gang were arrested in the Bhitarkanika National Park (in the state of Orissa, northeast India, on the Bay of Bengal). According to police, the gang has connections with some shrimp farm owners who illegally convert large tracts of mangrove forest into shrimp farms. At the time of their arrest, the gang members had dinars, the currency of Iraq, in their pockets. Tito, charged with murdering a contractor, was not among the arrested.

Despite a Supreme Court ban on shrimp farming within five kilometers of the coast and a ban on shrimp farming in Bhitarkanika National Park, unauthorized shrimp farming abounds in the park. According to a local politician, forest officials are bribed to ignore the illegal activity. To prove his point, he noted that not a single shrimp pond had been taken out of commission in the last 18 months.

Sources: 1. Newindpress (publications and newspapers in India). Tito gang members arrested Friday (http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEQ20060316234400&Page=Q&Title=ORISSA&Topic=0). March 17, 2006. 2. The Statesman (the leading English language newspaper in West Bengal, India). Krushnanagara ghat sealed (http://www.thestatesman.net/page.aboutus.php?usrsess=1). March 19, 2006.

Indonesia
Transshipments-No Embargo

On March 15, 2006, the President of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, met with USA Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Jakarta. One of the topics on the agenda was the transshipment of Chinese shrimp to the USA. After the meeting, Minister Marie Pangestu said the Indonesian Government assured the USA Government that it would take firm measures against transshippers.

In a meeting in Washington, DC, USA, on March 15, 2006, an Indonesian team succeeded in convincing USA authorities that Indonesia was not transshipping Chinese shrimp to the USA. Consequently, the USA has dropped its threat to embargo Indonesian shrimp.

Sources: 1. Seafood.com (an online, subscription-based, fisheries news service). Indonesia assures U.S. it will fight transshipment. Ken Coons. Editor and Publisher, John Sackton (phone 781-861-1441, email jsackton@seafood.com). March 15, 2006. 2. Seafood.com (an online, subscription-based, fisheries news service). U.S. drops threat to embargo Indonesian shrimp. Ken Coons. Editor and Publisher, John Sackton (phone 781-861-1441, email jsackton@seafood.com). March 17, 2006.

Thailand
Feeding Trays

My name is Tom Lentini. I'm new to shrimp farming with a 2.6-hectare Penaeus vannamei farm in Chachoengsao Province (a leading inland shrimp farming area east of Bangkok) with eight growout ponds.

I will be stocking approximately 62 postlarvae per square meter, although the Fisheries Department here says stocking rates of up to 200 a square meter are okay.

I'm one of the first in this area to switch from diesel to gasoline and then to propane. I'm using a Daihatsu 1,000-cc engine that drives long-arm paddlewheels in adjacent ponds. Each pond has two long arms, with 12 paddles on each arm. Now, my pumps are being converted to propane. All this to cut fuel bills.

I see that in some parts of South America they are using feeding trays to feed the entire pond. I want to learn more about this. When the postlarvae are stocked, do you immediately start feeding them from the feeding trays, or do you wait a few weeks? I would like as much information as possible on the utilization of feeding trays. No one around here knows anything about them. I've ordered the materials to make 70 of them.

Source: Email to Shrimp News International from Tom Lentini (thailand_lentini@yahoo.com) on March 13, 2006.

Thailand
Contest Winners

For the past three years, the Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration at Chulalongkorn University has organized the Bangkok Business Challenge, a contest for entrepreneurs. This year's contest had 18 entrants from 11 universities across Asia. A team from the National University of Singapore won the contest, and a team from Mahidol University in Thailand, which formed a company called BioShield, came in second with a plan to commercialize a vaccine to prevent whitespot virus in shrimp. Suteera Chulermkarnchana, the CEO of BioShield, said her team was seeking around a million dollars to turn its concept into a business reality. The four-member team has devised production, marketing, distribution and financial plans to help market the vaccine. The team's key marketing strategy is to target manufacturers of shrimp feed. It is in talks with the CP Group.

Source: Bangkok Post (English language newspaper Bangkok, Thailand). Turning plans into reality: Business Challenge winners seek funding (http://www.bangkokpost.com/Yourmoney/13Mar2006_money06.php). Sriwipa Siripunyawit. March 13, 2006.

United States
Hawaii--D&J Ocean Farm

On March 16, 2006, the USA Environmental Protection Agency, ordered D&J Ocean Farm, Inc., which grows ogo, tilapia and shrimp on the island of Molokai, to restore wetlands that it illegally filled in 2002 and 2003. Before that, D&J filled 0.6 acres of wetlands to create a nursery, without obtaining a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers. In January 2004, the Natural Resources Conservation Service notified D&J that it violated the "swampbuster" provisions of the farm bill. Subsequently, the Army Corps informed the company of violations of the Clean Water Act. When the company failed to comply with the notifications, a complaint was filed with EPA.

Desmund Manaba, the firm's owner and manager, said his business will comply with the order, adding that a large portion of the fill soil was on the property when he leased it in 1995 and that he was unaware that federal permits were required for some subsequent work that he did, such as flattening out a hill to create a 150-square-foot area for some aquaculture tanks.

Sources: 1. Pacific Business News (business newspaper, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA). D&J Ocean Farm ordered to restore Molokai wetlands (http://pacific.bizjournals.com/pacific/stories/2006/03/13/daily43.html?jst=b_ln_hl). March 16, 2006. 2. Star Bulletin (newspaper, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA). Firm is told to restore portion of wetlands (http://starbulletin.com/2006/03/18/news/story14.html). Gary Kubota (gkubota@starbulletin.com). March 18, 2006.

United States
Hawaii-Oceanic Institute, Job

The Oceanic Institute seeks a Ph.D. to fill the vacant position of Director of Aquatic Feeds and Nutrition. The position requires a senior scientist with at least ten years of experience in aquatic animal nutrition, or a closely related field. The successful candidate will be expected to obtain research grants, to publish in peer-reviewed journals, and to manage research programs and research teams. A history of employment or research with commercial feeds is desirable.

Qualified candidates should submit a cover letter and Curriculum Vitae to: Oceanic Institute, Human Resources, 41-202 Kalanianaole Highway, Waimanalo, Hawaii, 96795 USA, or email them to: HR@oceanicinstitute.org. Deadline for submittal: March 31, 2006. Date posted: March 1, 2006.

Information: Gayle Miyashiro, Oceanic Institute, 41-202 Kalanianaole Highway, Waimanalo, HI 96795 USA (phone 808-259-3124, fax 808-259-5570, email gmiyashiro@oceanicinstitute.org, webpage www.oceanicinstitute.org).

Source: Aquafeed.com (The FREE E-zine for aquafeed professionals, http://www.aquafeed.com). Editor, Suzi Fraser Dominy (email editor@aquafeed.com). Advanced Job Search. Date posted, February 28, 2006.

United States
Washington State-James Heerin

Pioneering shrimp farmer James Heerin has been hired as executive director of the Aquaculture Certification Council, Inc., which coordinates the development of the Best Aquaculture Practices standards that form the basis of ACC's certification process. He will help develop plans for the further growth of ACC and its certification programs, and strive to improve connections among shrimp buyers, processors, farmers and consumers. He also hopes to shepherd ACC into the certification of fish and other aquaculture species.

Heerin has been involved in shrimp farming since 1966 when he incorporated the company that ultimately grew into Sea Farms, Inc., in Honduras, and he is currently a director of the company.

Source: The Global Aquaculture Advocate (http://www.gaalliance.org). Editor, Darryl Jory (dejry2525@aol.com). Aquaculture Certification News: Heerin Hired as New ACC Executive Director. Volume 9, Issue 1, Page 8, February 2006.

Vietnam
Freshwater Prawns

In Vietnam, freshwater prawn (Macrobrachium rosenbergii) production reached 10,000 metric tons in 2002. The absence of a stable seed supply had been an obstacle to the expansion of prawn farming, but the development of new seed production technology based on the "modified stagnant green water system" developed rapidly in the Mekong Delta, and in 2003 over 90 hatcheries produced 76.5 million postlarvae. This paper reviews the history and current status of freshwater prawn farming in Vietnam, along with a socioeconomic evaluation of hatchery technology.

Source: Electronical Larviculture Newsletter (http://www.rug.ac.be/aquaculture). Editor, Gilbert Van Stappen (gilbert.vanstappen@rug.ac.be). Review Article: Current Status of Freshwater Prawn Culture in Vietnam and the Development and Transfer of Seed Production Technology (Abstract). Nguyen Thanh Phuong, Tran Ngoc Hai, Tran Thi Thanh Hien, Tran Van Bui, Do Thi Thanh Huong, Vu Nam Son, Yoshinori Morooka, Marcy N. Wilder (marwil@jircas.affrc.go.jp) and Yutaka Fukuda (College of Aquaculture and Fisheries, Can Tho University, Can Tho City, Vietnam). Issue 293, March 15, 2006.