A New Type of Greenhouse Crop - Shrimp!
Greenhouses aren't just for plants anymore. In Missouri, saltwater shrimp is being grown in a greenhouse as part of a project run by David Brune, a professor at Missouri University College of Agriculture. The goal is to develop a seafood production system that is sustainable, scalable, and environmentally friendly.
Read the article below:
David Brune, a professor of agricultural systems management in the Missouri University College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, is developing a seafood production system that is sustainable, scalable and environmentally friendly.
At MU’s Bradford Research Center near Columbia, Brune is raising saltwater shrimp in a greenhouse. The facility holds about one-twentieth an acre of water and is fully stocked with Pacific white shrimp.
Why shrimp? Brune says shrimp is a valuable product that can be produced in a short period.
“I can grow a crop of shrimp here every 120 days,” he says. “If I raise the equivalent of 25,000 pounds per acre of water and I can get $4 a pound, that is a $100,000 cash flow per acre of water every 120 days. That’s not soybeans.”
It costs Brune about $3 a pound to produce the shrimp, so for Missouri shrimp to be economically feasible, it will cost shoppers a bit more than typical supermarket shrimp. But Brune estimates many U.S. consumers would willingly pay a premium price for locally grown, higher quality and sustainably produced shrimp.
“If 10 percent of American consumers would pay a premium price for shrimp, that is 120 million pounds a year,” he says. “We’re importing 1.2 billion pounds of shrimp from Asia. So if only one in 10 consumers would pay a dollar or two a pound extra, that is a $100 million market right there.”
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At GGS, we happily support efforts to make food production more sustainable, and we're glad to provide high quality greenhouse structures to help make this happen. Please share any other sustainable greenhouse ideas in the comments below!
Source: University of Missouri
