Southeast Mo. farmers reap fishy harvest

ST. LOUIS -- Some farmers in Southeast Missouri are hoping their crop wasn't damaged by this year's unusual spring freeze. But unlike fruit and vegetable growers, these farmers have an advantage: Their crops grow under water.

More farmers in Southeast Missouri are growing prawns -- tasty relatives of the saltwater shrimp that have become a popular choice at restaurants and grocery stores. This year's prawn harvest is just getting under way.

Farmers in Southern Illinois and Southeast Missouri are draining ponds to find out how their prawn crop weathered the season. Farmers have to remove the water to get to the bottom feeders to know exactly how many have survived and grown to healthy adults.

"It's faith farming," said Charles Mattingly, who runs Glade Creek Farm in Des Arc, Mo., with his wife, Norma. "You never really know until you harvest what your results are going to be."

Most growers develop a customer base such as restaurants or food distributors and sell directly to them. But the Mattinglys and others are turning the harvest into an event.

"When you see the look on the little children's faces, they are fascinated with these creatures," said Mattingly.

There will be shrimp on skewers for sale along with nonprawn offerings such as hot dogs at the farm of Brenda Lyons, who raises shrimp with her husband their 10-acre farm in Sandoval, Ill.

Pony rides, a petting zoo and Cajun and country music will also be available. Lyons will also give tours of the hatchery and nursery situated in a barn behind the house. The prawns pulled out of the water that day will be sold for $9 a pound. Customers bring their own coolers.

A harvest can net about $4,000, not enough to keep a farm going. That's why most prawn farmers also raise fish. The same two ponds that the Lyonses use for prawns in the summer are filled with rainbow trout from October to April.

The Shawnee Freshwater Prawn Growers Assoc., representing farmers in Illinois and Missouri, formed in 2000 and had more than 40 members. Today, there are about half that many.

Bob Boyd, president of the U.S. Freshwater Prawn and Shrimp Growers Assoc., said the business was growing again. As the prawn demand continues to jump, the farmers that stuck with it are serving as experts to fledgling growers and the technology has improved to make the industry less risky, he said.

"When we got into it seven years ago, we told people we were growing shrimp in Southern Illinois," said Boyd, whose farm is in Cobden, Ill. "They said: 'You gotta be nuts.' Then they'd taste the product."