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 a shrimp taleHow Ohio came to produce fresh seafood story & photos by Seth Teter Bob Calala gunned the engine on his pickup truck. It lurched forward then sank back into the mud on his Huron County farm. At 132 acres of land, more than 90 were underwater. Calala tried again. The truck broke free, and he cut the wheel hard to the right as the front end clipped the edge of the woods. Calala seemed unfazed as the truck clamored along the narrow path that snaked through a patchwork of ponds back to the farmhouse. After all, you’ve got to expect a little mud when you farm shrimp. “Basically, if it will grow corn, it will grow shrimp,”
Calala said of Ohio’s farmland. Calala, who is president of the Ohio Aquaculture Association, recently opened the state’s first shrimp nursery and said there are 20 to 25 shrimp farms in the state. “We got involved in it because it was a natural fit for us,” said Calala, whose family has been raising fish for more than 40 years. He added that farming shrimp has tremendous potential, noting that the United States has a $9 billion to $10 billion seafood deficit, with shrimp being the top seafood import. Alaskan salmon, Maine lobster and Ohio shrimp? If it comes as a surprise that Ohio farmers are raising shrimp, it should. Just a few years ago it wasn’t even clear if shrimp could survive in the state, not to mention it was illegal to raise them. And even if farmers could grow them, there was no guarantee that consumers would be interested. Cattle? Sure. Hogs? Absolutely. Bison, bees, ostrich and llamas? You bet. But Ohio shrimp? The Buckeye State isn’t exactly synonymous with seafood. But don’t tell that to Calala. During an on-farm sale, he sold 800 pounds of shrimp in just three hours — his entire harvest. He said many of the customers had never seen a whole shrimp. “If we had a petting zoo for these things, people would have been thrilled,” he said. And as for the taste? Tests have shown that consumers can tell a difference between freshwater and marine shrimp, but they do not prefer one over the other. “The freshwater shrimp are milder (less ‘fishy’) than the saltwater shrimp,” Calala said, adding that the mild flavor readily lends itself to seasonings. And he said there’s something else that sets apart the shrimp raised on Ohio farms. “In a farm-raised product, you know where the (shrimp) came from, you know what they’re being fed,” he said. “You have a healthier product.” But Ohio’s shrimp industry didn’t get where it is today on its own. It had to have a little help. And it came from the woman they call the Shrimp Queen. It’s good to be queen Laura Tiu laughed about the title as she walked through the halls of Ohio State University’s aquaculture center in Piketon. Tiu is one of the researchers responsible for bringing shrimp to the state. “A lot of people in this area haven’t had fresh seafood before,” she said. But before research could begin, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which regulates fish and shrimp farming, had to be sure the shrimp wouldn’t negatively impact the environment. It turned out to be an easy sell, because Malaysian prawns can’t survive in temperatures below 55 degrees and must have saltwater to reproduce. “They’re not native to Ohio, but if they got out they’re not going to cause a problem,” said John Navarro, ODNR fish hatchery administrator. So in 2002, Ohio’s first shrimp ponds were stocked. Shrimp had been raised on farms in warmer states, even as far north as Kentucky. But that didn’t mean they could survive in Ohio. Tiu said shrimp go in the pond when they are the size of a dime, weighing just .3 grams. “When they’re small, they’re translucent. They’re actually kind of cute,” she said. She added that once they are under water, you don’t see them again for 100 days. And that meant a nerve-wracking summer for first-time growers. “It’s risky. This is farming. You have just as much risk as putting your seed in the ground,” Calala said. But tensions were eased when harvest came. “The one thing that amazed us was how big these things got,” he said. “We had a guy this year that said one of his was half a pound.” Tiu explained that Ohio’s cooler temperatures prevent the shrimp from developing sexually, which means they can expend more energy on growing. The result is that Ohio can produce large shrimp in a shorter season. It’s a shrimp’s life They’re scavengers. Cannibals. Extremely territorial. “They have a dominant male and they have a harem of three to five females,” Tiu said. She said when two shrimp are placed together, one will suppress the growth of the other. Scientists believe this is done by the release of a pheromone. And Tiu explains that Ohio consumers aren’t the only ones with a taste for seafood. Shrimp must molt (shed their hard outer shell) as they grow. And for nearby shrimp, that only means one thing – fresh meat. “The minute one of them molts, the rest of them attack,” she said. To get around this, farmers place artificial substrate in ponds such as construction fencing, netting or even old Christmas trees. This provides additional surface area for the shrimp so they don’t cross each other’s paths. At harvest, producers simply drain the ponds. “Shrimp, unlike fish, go with the flow of water,” Calala said. At the end of the ponds is a catch basin, which collects the shrimp, and they are scooped out with a dip net. A good yield can easily bring more than 1,000 pounds of shrimp per acre. At Calala’s farm sale, customers bring their own coolers and ice. When shrimp are placed on ice, their metabolism slows down and they eventually die. Then they can be prepared just like any other shrimp. “I really prefer to cook them whole,” Tiu said, noting that the fat in the shrimp’s head will baste the tail. And while that’s all good for the Shrimp Queen, consumers not used to live shrimp tend to have a different response. “Off with their heads.” To comment on this article, e-mail info@ourohio.org |
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