Feeding Europe: Shrimp Harvest

Indonesia is the third biggest aquaculture producer in the World. Annual aquaculture production in 2016 was 16 million 600 thousand ton and its economic value was recorded as 10 billion 303 million USD. Even though, most of the aquaculture production comes from the seaweeds (11 million 600 thousand ton seaweed in 2016 but only 1.3 billion USD economic value) tilapia, milkfish, carp, pangasius and grouper are main aquaculture species here (for more information about aquaculture industry in Indonesia please click the here). Well, of course shrimp is a main crustacean species they produced 638 thousand ton in 2016. 

Figure: Aquaculture production in Indonesia (except seaweed) (graphic from Wordfish)

In the marine biotechnology workshop, last week we had discuss that how to improve the income and support the community development by using biotechnology (to read my article about this workshop click here please).

I am so happy to be in this big aquaculture country and more than happy to had chance to visit one f the small scale shrimp farm nearby Surabaya in Madura island. I meet a lady in faculty in the first week of my visit and my colleague Mr Muhamad told me that this lady has been running a shrimp farm.  Later I had asked this lady if possible to visit one of shrimp farm. After her phone traffic with her team, she told me Monday they have a partial harvest in the farm if I want to see? I was thrilled by this amazing offer… Yes of course… Doesn’t matter I had to get up early at 4am doesn’t matter 2 hours driving in the early morning to the farm… I had to go…

Monday morning I woke up at 4am had some little breakfast which I prepared day before. After 5am the team came by a nice car and picked me up from the hotel… We had to drive to Madura Island where the farm is. The company name is PT. Nagrofa Aqua Kultura and the farm is approximately twelve decare, divided four parcels and has 4 earthen ponds in Klampis area of Bangkalan town in Mandura island. The company is running by three young guy and one young lady, names are Royce, Kevin, Dwi and Miss Daruti. They actually rented very big area but they planned to scale up slowly. So next year they will probably have doubled their production. When we have arrived the farm, the harvest team was already arrived and was waiting for us. But first these young guys had to check the ponds… They build a ladder to the each pond and from that point they check the feeding of shrimp…

From the color of ponds I can see how successfully they have managed the biofloc. The aeration of the ponds and the circulation has done perfectly. In the middle of pond they built a shrimp toilet just exactly I have listen in Aquaculture 2018 Conference, couple of months ago in Montpellier , France. This good aeration let them produce 330 shrimp in a square meter which should be normally around 100-150 individuals. They have been doing mass production and always partial harvesting… This time it is their second harvest and in couple of weeks they will harvest again… 

After checking every pond, the harvesting team started to take samples from the ponds by throw net… 15-20 kg shrimps from each pond were collected and all of them graded and checked the size, the number of molting individuals and small size shrimp also the shrimp with a scare on shell eliminated for lower price.. Mr Royce told me these shrimps mostly export to Europe and US... So, If you have a shrimp dish in a Germany restaurant or in France, it probably comes from my friends' farm ;) 

And after that process the harvest team (the buyer) and the farm owners (sellers) made a deal by shaking hand… They accepted the entire price was given both side were happy… After that bargain harvest team started to progress and we climbed up to top of building to have a brunch (at 8:30 am) … This was a traditional Indonesian breakfast of course... Lot of rice, species and of course chicken and fish :) I like it ;)

We had talked about Turkish aquaculture, their ideas and future plans, how they planned to scale up the farm and value adding projects… I explained them how EURASTIP supports industries, researchers and lecturers. They were very interested in… I have shown them some video from Turkish aquaculture on YouTube and also explain how to apply EURASTIP exchange program.

The harvest was finished, the shrimps were stocked in icy tanks and covered, hands were shaken, photos were taken and we left the farm… We all went to a restaurant to eat some shrimp and fish… Delicious… These people are very generous, hospitable and helpful… I thank you all of them and looking forward to see them in Turkey…

Good Luck guys… You are doing great job… I envy you ;)