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COUNTRY LIFE IN BC • JULY 2019


Young farmers served a heaping helping Langley tour showcased shrimp, livestock and cider production


by RONDA PAYNE LANGLEY—BC Young


Farmers toured three dramatically different farm operations in Langley on May 31. Berezan Shrimp Co., Central Park Farms and Fraser Valley Cider Co. couldn’t be more different in what they produce, yet the common thread is dedication and sustainability. The Berezan family hopes to supply Canadian-grown shrimp to all of Canada. Berezan Shrimp – where employees don’t have titles – opened in November 2017 and produces about 40 tonnes of shrimp a year. The building feels tropical at 30° Celsius and 75% humidity, but the shrimp like it. According to shrimp farmer


Eric Swift, there are 48 tanks screened with nets that each hold 20,000 litres of water and about 10,000 shrimp. When the shrimp larvae arrive from a hatchery in Texas certified by the US Fish and Wildlife Branch, they’re 0.003 of a gram and about the width of a hair. The mature shrimp weigh 20 grams when they’re harvested four months later. About 20,000 larvae go into each nursery tank and are slowly acclimatized to a higher temperature and lower salinity than during transport. The farm is engineered to mimic their natural environment.


“Water quality is closely


monitored each day and there are weekly health checks,” Swift explains. Shrimp are easily agitated, so the transfer from their nursery tank to a regular tank is managed so as to minimize movement. It is the only move the shrimp make. Despite this, the mortality rate is about 40%. “They jump and they jump


pretty far,” says Swift. “If they see a shadow or a tank is bumped, they jump. It’s a farm at the end of the day, so sometimes things are going to go wrong.”


Jumping in one tank can cause the shrimp version of the stadium wave, setting off shrimp in the next tank and so on across the facility. Visitors were asked to be as quiet as possible, no photos were permitted and


absolutely no touching of the tanks so as to minimize disturbances. The shrimp are fed a


vegetable-based diet in small quantities every 30 minutes. It adds up to hundreds of kilos a day via a computer- controlled, custom-built, pneumatic blower. With a mouth and a hepatopancreas gland as their digestive system, waste comes out “as fast as it goes in,” says Swift, and shrimp will eat their own feces, thereby absorbing almost all nutrients.


Tanks have three constantly-running centralized filtration systems to remove solids, provide aeration, skim off foam and convert ammonia to nitrates. Once through these filters, water goes through a wastewater filtration system upgraded in December 2018. The new, larger system removes nitrates and readies the water for recirculation. The filtration process takes


about 20 hours from start to finish. With filtration, harvesting and other maintenance, Swift says there’s plenty of trouble- shooting on the fly to create a fully stabilized system and increase production to its top capacity of 100 tonnes a year. Shrimp can be monitored from anywhere via a touch screen and web-based computer controls. “It’s not like a pond where


BEREZAN SHRIMP CO. PHOTO


you stock it and leave it,” he notes. “We’ll add extra levels of complexity as we go.” Berezan Shrimp is 100% sustainable. Its shrimp have been approved for raw consumption and the operation is Ocean Wise certified as well as compliant with the Fisheries and Oceans Canada Act. The Langley facility is a pilot with plans to build more operations in the future once the process is


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