May/June 2010 - Global Aquaculture Alliance

sleep, understanding it was risk money
doing a project that was somewhat
untested. It would be research and development.
He loved the term “R & D.” But
the way Barry thought, to do a project in
typical shrimp farm fashion would have
no long-term future.
Industry Status: 1996
Shrimp farming in Central America
during 1996 was dominated by large 10-
to 20-ha ponds stocked at 10-30/m 2 densities
and producing 2,000-3,000 mt/ha.
All stocking was done with postlarvae
derived directly from the wild or from wild
broodstock.
Taura syndrome was having a major
impact on shrimp survivorship, and if
that was not a serious-enough problem,
postlarvae just did not grow into large
shrimp. A harvest at 15-g size would
have been considered large due to what at
the time was known as dry season slow
growth syndrome.
Pond management centered on managing
phytoplankton populations that
would periodically crash if water exchange
rates were not great enough. The more
water you flowed, the higher your pond
yields. Ponds were therefore always sited
at low elevations so that high-volume,
low-head pumps could be used.
During most harvests, crabs, fish and
wild shrimp would also come out with
the cultured shrimp. Postlarvae were
judged by price. Guatemala had superior
seed because the cost was less than U.S.
$1 per thousand. Only wild seed was
acceptable, because seed from a domesticated
source would be so weak they
would die in a pond.
Shrimp genetics were unheard of, and
no one ever talked about pedigree or
source of broodstock. Every white shrimp
was equivalent to every other white
shrimp. Bacterial ecology was never
talked about, and the only bacteria were
the pathogenic variety.
Pond bottom preparation, however,
was a major topic of discussion. You had
to dry, till and lime the bottoms between
crops. This limited most farms to no
more than two cycles per year.
BAL Contributions
Against this background, consider the
contributions that Barry Bowen made to
shrimp farming through his vision and
development of Belize Aquaculture Ltd.:
• A farm designed to produce 11 mt/
ha. In fact, his first harvest on February
3, 1998, yielded 14 mt/ha
with a survivorship of 92%. On that
night, Barry had a smile of great
satisfaction.
I remember Barry took some of those
first shrimp back to his farm house and
Dixie, his wife, cooked them up for an
after-harvest celebration. The shrimp,
grown in pure seawater and on plastic
with no water exchange, were so very
tasty.
The first harvest was not a fluke. For
the next three years, the farm averaged
over 15.2 mt/ha with shrimp sizes as
large as 24 g. No dry season syndrome on
the BAL farm.
• A farm constructed on land with an
elevation greater than 12 m because
he was a firm believer in being
above the hurricane zone. Because
of this head requirement, ponds
were built to operate on little water
exchange. In fact, the phrase “zero
Belize Aquaculture distributed feed by mechanical blower. Heavy foam on the surface
of the pond indicates incomplete transition to a bacterially dominated pond community.
water exchange” was coined to
describe pond management there.
There were no high-volume, low-head
pumps at BAL. And the term “biofloc”
came from the bacterial communities that
developed in zero-water-exchange ponds.
There were brown flocs, black flocs and
green flocs.
• A farm that would practice “green”
aquaculture. Since the farm was in
an environmentally sensitive area,
Barry insisted on settling and treatment
ponds to receive harvest
drainage water. This water then
could be recycled at a lower cost in
pumping and reduced the chance of
pumping in an infection.
• A farm that was built for biosecure
management. Before any other
shrimp farm owner I knew in the
Americas even knew the word or
concept, Barry had ideas on biosecurity.
He knew disease could literally
kill his project.
A sign stating “Biosecurity Zone” was
on prominent display at the farm entrance.
Visitors were discouraged, not because of
keeping secrets, but for fear of bringing in
disease. No one was ever allowed to bring a
“foreign” shrimp or crab onto the farm site.
A major feature of biosecurity is the
ability to screen carriers and competitors
out of the water before it enters ponds.
Barry designed a filter system that
allowed us to completely filter all pond
water down to 200 µ – unheard of at the
time. But harvests at BAL were always
clean, with never a fish, crab or wild
shrimp.
• A farm based on the use of specific
pathogen-free (SPF) domesticated
shrimp. Barry was not the first
farmer in the Americas to use
Hawaiian SPF shrimp, but he was
the first to use SPF shrimp after the
initial failed introduction to Ecuador
and, more importantly, the first
to show the importance of SPF
shrimp in large-scale commercial
farming outside the boundaries of
the United States. The success that
BAL demonstrated with SPF
shrimp provided the base for SPF
acceptance in other locations
throughout the world.
• A farm that used high-density polyethylene
(HDPE) liners. BAL was
one of the first farms to demonstrate
the merits of lining ponds
with HDPE plastic. A few ponds
had been lined previously, but no
farm had actually understood or
demonstrated the benefits of lining.
Barry Bowen was a proud Belizean who actively participated in his “hard asset”
investments.
BAL clearly showed that HDPE
allowed quick pond turnaround times,
increasing the number of harvest cycles
per year. HDPE also protected the freshwater
aquifers from saltwater intrusion.
Monitor wells proved this out. But more
than one expert told Barry that he could
not grow shrimp on plastic.
• A farm that mechanized as much as
possible. Both feeding and harvesting
activities were mechanized to
reduce the amount of labor
required. Production of 900 mt of
shrimp was accomplished with
three individuals. Typically, farms
would employ many pond feeders
to manually apply feed and clean
screens. This was not the case at
BAL.
• A modular hatchery and maturation
system that operated continuously
for the five years I was present. It
never required the scripted dryouts
that were part of so many hatchery
protocols. By building a modularized
hatchery, the operation could
be operated efficiently 12 months
per year.
The project was not without problems.
But every time a problem developed,
Barry Bowen was steady and
focused. Barry did not allocate blame, it
was R & D. And so we learned and continued
to refine the concept of BAL. The
results spoke for themselves, and further
improvements were made in stocking,
water management and operation of the
settling basins and recycling systems.
Practical Environmentalist
On occasion, Barry Bowen was
attacked for his “environmentalism.”
Barry was a practical environmentalist.
He funded naturalists at his Gallon Jug
Estate and personally loved to hike
though the jungle and watch birds and
other wildlife. He donated 110,000 ha of
jungle land, which became the Rio Bravo
Conservation and Management Area,
ensuring a natural heritage for future
generations of Belizeans.
Barry was consistent in his belief that
shrimp farming could be and should be
done with the environment in mind. And
he made Belize Aquaculture a testament
to that belief. But as he told me once: “I
lose patience with those people who
think environmentalism is not to develop
an economy. Developed economies are
required for people to lead better and
happier lives. I bet each of the environmentalists
from the so-called developed
world lives with a yard full of grass that
used to have a virgin forest on it. Their
ancestors did what we in Belize must now
do to develop, and for that we are criticized.”
Father Of Modern Shrimp
Farming
Let me conclude by saying that in my
mind, shrimp farming was changed by
Barry Bowen, changed for the better. He
is my “father of modern shrimp farming.”
He changed ideas that resulted in a more
sustainable model that produces shrimp
with predictability, in quantities never
thought possible and at lower costs that
continually make shrimp more available
to more and more consumers.
Today, shrimp farmers and those
involved in researching shrimp culture
technology routinely talk about biofloc,
limited water exchange, the pedigrees of
shrimp, biosecurity, pushing production
envelopes, developing new markets based
on freshness and green technologies.
Barry Bowen dreamed of these ideas
before any of us, and he had the boldness
to act on his dreams and the skill to make
them happen.
Thank You
I was privileged to work for Barry
Bowen, and for that privilege, I have
become a better shrimp culturist, a culturist
who is no longer bound by limits
set by industrial thinking. Thank you, Sir
Barry Bowen.
A legend is someone about whom
everyone you meet has a story to tell, and
generally a story larger than life itself.
This was Barry Bowen. Anyone in Belize,
on the mention of the name Barry
Bowen, had a story to tell.
Barry, you were a living legend in
Belize. And Belize will never see another
like you.
Sir Barry Bowen
Barry Bowen was knighted by
Queen Elizabeth in 2008 for his
many contributions to Belize.
Thereafter he became Sir Barry
Bowen.
Sir Barry Bowen was given an
official state funeral that attracted
thousands of people to pay
respects as the official motorcade
traveled from the funeral service to
his internment in Cayo.
Prime Minister Dean Barrow
said the following about Barry
Bowen during the interment:
“He was obviously one of the
greatest modern-day Belizeans,
one of the greatest Belizeans of his
generation. It’s not just that he
was so immensely successful as a
businessman, it was the fact that
he was always prepared to take
risks, that he was always prepared
to diversify, even when it meant
that he would get into new areas
that were far from certain in terms
of offering the kinds of returns
that businessmen and entrepreneurs
would normally look for.
That is what I found most outstanding
about him – that he had
a mindset that suggested that he
could get anything out of the
Belizean earth.”
8 May/June 2010 global aquaculture advocate
global aquaculture advocate May/June 2010 9