Arizona Desert Sweet Shrimp

"Isn’t that a beautiful shrimp?" exclaims Gary Wood. We all know that some pretty strange things grow in the desert, but shrimp? Paul had to see it for himself to believe it!

Believe it or not, there’s a guy who’s been engaged in this unusual kind of aquaculture for almost a decade and he un-shellfish-ly shared with Paul the secrets of his success.

"Isn’t that a beautiful shrimp?" exclaims Gary Wood.

While shrimp are at the top of the list of America’s favorite seafood, many of us wouldn’t consider them beautiful. But to Gary Wood of Desert Sweet Shrimp, those small crustaceans are as prized, as precious, as luminous as gold. His family once ran a shrimp farm all the way down in Ecuador and in the mid 1990s, Gary saw an opportunity to do the same in the stark wide-open spaces outside Gila Bend, Arizona.

While it might seem a bit incongruous to be raising shrimp in the Arizona desert, it can actually be a good thing. Good for the farmer. Good for the consumer and surprisingly, good for the environment.

Let’s start with the weather. "Remember, this is one of the hottest places in the country," notes Gary. "If you ever watch the weather, you’ll notice that almost every day or every few days we either tie or break the record for being the hottest place in the states. Ha-ha."

Warm, cloud-free days help the shrimp grow quickly in large ponds spreading out over fifty acres. But more than anything else, what sets Desert Sweet apart from competing shrimp farms in Asia and South America is its avoidance of artificial chemicals, growth agents and antibiotics.

"The big difference between American operations (and Asian) I think is that our water is so much cleaner and so much healthier for the shrimp," says Gary.

The shrimp start out as tiny, transparent brood stock and are acclimated over a period of weeks from thriving in salt water to growing in fresh. Turns out that’s not unusual since shrimp in the wild seek out fresh water "marshes" to shield them from predators.

"So they hide out in the estuaries. And because of that, in those estuaries in the monsoon season, when it rains, a lot the water becomes a lot less salty than it normally is," says Gary.

In fact, it becomes almost fresh, because of the rain. And, they discovered during that time, that the shrimp thrived in that type of water. Gary’s product, Pacific white shrimp, feed on a diet of naturally occurring algae together with pellets made of fishmeal and squid. It takes several months for them to grow to adult size. By late summer, they’ve matured. That’s when the ponds are drained and the shrimp caught live in a "seine" or net. They’re dumped into bins, then covered with ice. They’re quickly frozen and go to customers such as high-end restaurants, grocery stores, and consumers who order off the internet.

After the harvest, the now nutrient-rich water enjoys a new purpose: irrigating crops on nearby farms.

"Alfalfa, olives, is mostly what it goes to, sometimes wheat which is made into pasta," Gary says. "So we have the makings of an Italian dish here: olive oil, the pasta, and the shrimp. We don’t have tomatoes, though."

While Desert Sweet enjoys a loyal customer base, it’s still hard to compete with lower-priced imported shrimp. But as long as people are willing to pay for a high-quality, homegrown product, Gary hopes his little company will enjoy the sweet taste of success for many years to come.

Additional Information:
www.desertsweetshrimp.com/index.html

Did you know:
Arizona is awash in aquaculture! More than half a million pounds of desert shrimp are being raised on farms throughout the state. That’s up from 6,000 when the industry started in 1997. Other "watery" products from The Grand Canyon State: farm-raised trout and tilapia, a popular white fish.