Fish farm swims through wave of challenges

Christopher Serju, Gleaner Writer

The crushing impact of high interest rates in the late 1990s forced the Jamaica Agricultural Development Foundation (JADF) to change gear from what was dictated by its original mandate to what Chief Executive Officer Vitus Evans describes as project development.

"We started off mainly as an institution that was involved in the financing of agriculture, and when the interest rates went sky high in the late 1990s, we decided to actually change focus because the prevailing interest rates at that time could not support agriculture

"So we changed from financing and moved to what we call more project development, where we wanted to identify new technology, new agricultural practices, new crops that we would then seek to introduce to the farmers locally," he told The Gleaner.

More than 10 years later, however, things have not gone the route envisaged by the foundation. While for the most part it has been successful in the projects undertaken, getting the private sector to take these further has been met with limited success.

"The thinking was that we would be more like an incubator to start those projects, work them out, deal with the kinks and then look at the viability. Once we believed they were commercially viable, we hoped that the private sector would actually come and take over. It didn't work that way."

Difficult journey

Offloading the only facility in Jamaica which produces marine shrimp, a total of 160 acres of ponds on a 250-acre property in Brampton, Old Harbour, St Catherine, has been difficult, even with its impressive track record.

Initially established as a joint venture with the University of the West Indies, which provided research and technology to match the financing and management from the JADF, the project took off quite well, said Evans.

"We grew the shrimp brilliantly ... . I mean, the market sold everything out, but again we felt that there needed to be proper management and it needed to be private sector. It took us a while but, in 2007, it was divested and we actually got some private people to take it over.

"We still maintain an interest, with about a 20 per cent stake, but it is divested. The JADF still owns the land but it is leased to private people, with the ponds, equipment and everything and then they pay royalty," the CEO explained.

Water is pumped from the sea into a 50-acre reservoir, from which it is gravity-fed or pumped into two-acre and five-acre ponds stocked with very young shrimp, called 'post-larvae', imported from Miami or Cuba.

At the height of production, the facility has been able to market 20,000 tonnes of shrimp per annum, well above the 12,000 tonnes it now produces. Even when operating at full potential, it is still unable to meet demand, according to Technical Director Noel Thompson.

"We cannot produce enough, as we supply the hotels and restaurants which go for the big shrimps, while for those people who do shrimp-fried rice and other such dishes, we produce the smaller ones. As much as we produce, we are still unable to meet the demand for marine shrimp," Thompson explained.

Safety first

Strict adherence to phytosanitary measures, thereby ensuring that Jamaica maintains disease-free status, results in higher production costs. But this is a small price to pay for quality, the technical director told The Gleaner.

"Jamaica is free of any of the diseases which affect the shrimp industry anywhere else in the world and we only buy clean post-larvae. By clean, we mean they must have disease-free status, must be SPF (specific pathogen-free) certified.

He said suppliers were compelled to provide certification from reputable labs in the country of origin that their product was free of disease. The Veterinary Division of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries also checks validity and other standards before importation, said Thompson.

"For this, we pay three times as much as if we were to say, 'Sell us any post-larvae', without regard its disease status, but it is worth it, because if we were to try and cut cost by buying any post-larvae, then in a little while our shrimp industry would be wiped out," he said.

At the end of production, when the ponds are drained to harvest the shrimp, the water is pumped back into the sea. Each month, the National Environment and Planning Agency checks the water quality in the production ponds and again before it is returned to sea.

Better taste

Shrimp is grown alone or along with tilapia, and according to Evans, the taste quality is far different and well above that of other 'pond fish' offer locally. The reason, he explained, is because the fish - from the stage of hatching until harvesting - are raised in seawater, accounting for the better taste over other pond fish, which are raised in fresh water.

The fish are harvested first and then the pond drained and the shrimp caught in baskets. Soon after, they are put on ice and taken to the onsite processing facility where they are cleaned, packed and blast-frozen before being stored in refrigerated containers, ready for the market.

Production is on its way back, with the dehydration caused by last year's prolonged drought rendering the water in the reservoir too salty, forcing a halt to operations, as the salinity of the water was too high and would have compromised the shrimps' health, according to Thompson.

The situation caught the facility off-guard, as there were no plans in place to replenish the ponds with fresh water.

"We were only able to start up production because of the recent rains which provided some fresh water which we were able to use and balance out the salinity in the ponds," Evans explained.

Since then, the facility has entered into an agreement with the National Irrigation Commission to put in place a network of pipelines in order to address the issue if the need should again arise.