The harvest on the Small Fry farm began this past week on one of the two-acre ponds. After two days of harvesting, the crews had collected about 2,500 pounds of the Pacific white shrimp.

Local residents will be able to call the farm office and place orders for shrimp, which will be harvested each Wednesday until about October 10. After that date, the water temperatures are falling to the pointn about 55 degreesn where the shrimp can not survive. At some time before those cooler water temperatures arrive, the two ponds will be completely drained to capture the remaining shrimp.

The "science project" began when the post larva shrimp were obtained. They went first to Kendall's Sandy Brook Farm in McGehee to be acclimated. That process includes gradually reducing the salinity of the water in which the shrimp live until the water is essentially fresh water.

On the Currie farm, ponds which had been used for fish production are being used to grow the shrimp. On ponds built for shrimp production, such as those on the Kendall farm, the bottoms slope more. Also, the drain pipes are much larger. The larger drains enable the producer to open the drain pipe and then catch the shrimp in a net as they come out of the pipe. The Currie ponds, however, are not sloped enough and do not have large enough drain pipes to harvest the shrimp in that way. As a result, the traditional seine is used to gather the shrimp into a small pocket where they are dipped out by hand.

While the larger drains on custom built shrimp farms reduce the amount of manual labor because the nets can simply be lifted out and dumped, there are also advantages to the seine. On the Currie farm, if he has an order for 150 pounds of shrimp, then that amount can be seined. If the main drain is opened on a shrimp pond, then the producer had better be ready to do something with all the shrimp in the pond.

Once the fish is out of the pond, then the same procedures are followed on both Kendall's and Currie's farm. The first step is "chill killing" the shrimp by placing them in a bath of cold water. The shrimp are then hand sorted to remove any small fish, sticks or other things caught in the nets.

The next step is to pack them in ice for shipment or for sale.

On the Currie farm, the shrimp harvested this past week were headed to a South Fresh processing plant in Utah, Alabama. At that plant, they were individually quick frozen so that they can be packaged and stored for later sale. That process extends the market period somewhat and reduces the pressure for immediate sale..

Certainly the telling factors in whether or not marine shrimp will be a financially feasible project in this area will be a comparison of input costs and returns or yields, whether figured on a dollar per acre or price per pound basis. It is still too early to determine either of those figures because the harvest is just now underway.

One thing is certain, however. It is much more expensive to raise shrimp than to raise fish. Currie said that he believes this year that it may cost him five times as much to raise shrimp as it would to raise fish, while Kendall said that he believes that his cost will be two to three times the cost of fish production.

Certainly, Kendall noted, labor costs are higher for shrimp than for fish. Also, shrimp need more aeration than fish, another expense. It is also expensive to obtain the post larva shrimp and to acclimate them before they are placed in the ponds.

According to Kendall, while oxygen levels are not as big a factor as with fish, shrimp do better when their water is moving. On his ponds, water drains from one end of the pond to a ditch and is then pumped back in the other end of the pond to keep the water moving.

A major part of the financial feasibility of shrimp also depends on the issue of marketing. So far, the area growers do not have the volume and dependability to attract large scale distributors. As a result, they rely on smaller sales to grocers, restaurants, to individuals and through outlets such as farmers' markets.

Kendall, who had a small test pond last year, was excited enough about the feasibility of shrimp to expand to 15 acres this year. As of this past week, he has harvested one of his three ponds, averaging about 1,000 pounds of shrimp per acre, "not quite as good as last year." He said that this year, he had made some mistakes and will learn from those mistakes in the future, making changes in his operation as needed.

On the Currie farm, one two acre pond had produced over 2,300 pounds of shrimp with one full seining and two partial seinings. He planned to seine the pond at least one more time because when the net was pulled it, shrimp were jumping over the net or possibly escaping under it. Then, when the seining fails to produce enough shrimp to justify the labor, the crew will drain the pond to get the remaining shrimp.

The taste of the marine shrimp grown in the fresh water ponds is very good, though slightly different from the ocean raised shrimp. Part of that difference may be due to lower iodine levels, which could make the pond raised shrimp more attractive to people who are sensitive or allergic to iodine. Also, the veins on the pond raised shrimp are much smaller because of the fast growth rate, and they can be eaten without having to devein them.

Kendall is excited about the long-term feasibility of shrimp production. "We are hurting so badly here in Southeast Arkansas," he said. "We might have found something that our soil and water is well adapted to." As an example, he noted that the growth rate on the farms in this area are higher than for salt water shrimp farms in South America.

The market for salt water shrimp grown in Southeast Arkansas will be to the north, Kendall predicted. He said that he

While Kendall grows only the salt water species of shrimp. Currie has both salt water and fresh water varieties. "There's a lot of difference," Currie said. One difference is in the density per meter of water. The salt water species is very sociable, and so many more of them can be placed in each square meter of water than the fresh water species. Naturally, the greater the density, the smaller the shrimp will be.

Currie noted that he is not interested in growing popcorn shrimp, where the density is very high, and the crop is harvested and then a new one started. As Kendall said, what they aim for is quality size gourmet-tasting shrimp.