$100M prawn production project to begin soon at Onverwagt

– projected to bring in US$2.2M annually

A freshwater prawns project at Onverwagt, West Coast Berbice (WCB), Region Five, is expected to come on stream by the end of the year.
Presently, 10 ponds are currently being constructed, measuring one acre each. These ponds were expected to be filled with water and larvae on Monday.
This was revealed by Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha on Saturday, who added that once production starts, the prawns will attract a very good price while noting that the facility is expected to produce about 50 tonnes per crop.
On the international market, a tonne of prawns is being sold for US$15,000. “That will be about US$750,000 for one crop of prawns.”
It is expected that there will be three crops per year, which will net a whopping US$2.2 million annually.
According to Mustapha, his Ministry is trying to build an industry which produces huge quantities of freshwater prawns.

“These are in demand, especially in North America and the Caribbean. So, I am hoping that we can replicate this across the country. As the President rightly said, we are not only going in the traditional area, we are going into the non-traditional area now,” he said.
Mustapha pointed out that the development of the ponds for freshwater prawns shows a vision in the agriculture sector to reduce the food import bill, which will contribute to the 25 by 2025 goal.
The Ministry is also working with Barbados to start a similar project.
“They are calling it the ‘brown prawns’ in Barbados and several officers have already gone there to start the project. They are doing the brackish water shrimp where they are bringing in the salt water and mixing it with fresh water like we are doing on the Corentyne.”

Further, he stated that the production of brackish water shrimp has increased by 800 per cent since 2020, with an estimated 90 kilograms annually.
Before the Agriculture Ministry took an active role and invested in the production of brackish water shrimp on the Corentyne, farmers were involved in subsistence farming.
“I am hoping that by the end of that programme, we would see production move from 10,000 which we started with to about 150,000 kilograms. Now people from different parts of the country want to get involved in this activity. This augurs well for us in terms of developing new areas in the agriculture sector.
Meanwhile, Mustapha said he is hoping that the Onverwagt project will spread across the country.
He said the model is still being worked on but noted that there are several options – one is the have it as a public-private partnership.
“We can bring in private people and work with them, forming companies and pay a dividend at the end of the year, but we will be working with vulnerable groups; 35 per cent must be women and youth. If you look at what we are doing now, several young people are getting involved in agriculture. Those people who would have gone through the tertiary institutions got qualified and never went into agriculture practically – just doing clerical work are now getting into agriculture and sharing their knowledge.”
This, he pointed out, is good for the agriculture sector to have persons with skills and knowledge actively participating.
Nevertheless, as it relates to the freshwater prawns project, the Ministry is planning to have its own hatchery to produce larvae and also to develop a feed mill. “The entire chain we will be doing ourselves from the Ministry of Agriculture. (Andrew Carmicheal)