Valley shrimping has ‘gotten to be ... a real tough business’

NEAR BAYVIEW — With an expert flick of his wrist, shrimp farmer Fritz K. Jaenike tossed a net into one of his growing ponds here, drew it back and dumped a wriggling mass of the translucent, 5-inch long crustaceans into a bucket partly filled with water.

Some of the 100 or so shrimp, about 2-1/2 months old, jumped out with a flick of their tails, and Jaenike, general manager with Harlingen Shrimp Farms Ltd., picked them up and put them back in the bucket — and in one case making sure an escapee made it back into the pond itself.

The 52-year-old Jaenike’s care is understandable, considering his livelihood and that of thousands of other workers in the Rio Grande Valley depend on shrimping in one form or another — and that industry is on the decline locally.

Falling shrimp prices driven by cheap imports have hit hard both shrimp farmers in Cameron and Willacy counties and trawler businesses that catch shrimp wild. Indeed, the value of the handful of shrimp Jaenike picked up, legs squirming furiously, to show a visitor recently is worth less than it would have been just a few years ago.

“Shrimp farming’s gotten to be … a real tough business,” he said.

Harlingen Shrimp Farms brings in roughly $2 million a year in revenue from 600,000 pounds of shrimp, plus its hatchery business, he said. That’s down from $4 million off of 1.8 million pounds in the first years of this decade.

Overall, the value of Cameron County’s farm-raised shrimp fell to $4.6 million in 2006, from about $10 million a year earlier in the decade, according to Tony Reisinger, a Cameron County extension agent who is based in San Benito and deals with coastal and marine resources with the Texas Sea Grant and Texas A&M Cooperative extensions.

The Valley’s shrimping industry — which past estimates have shown has supported about 10,000 direct and indirect jobs in Cameron County, although that number may have fallen — “has suffered from a major decline … in value of production,” he said.

The United States processes about 8 percent of what the nation uses domestically, he said. The rest comes from abroad — including Thailand, China, Indonesia and, increasingly, Vietnam — with about half of those imports farm-raised.

Those countries can produce shrimp more cheaply than U.S. farmers for several reasons.

Labor costs less. Foreign countries have been known to use certain antibiotics to increase shrimp survival rates, traces of which aren’t good for people. And their tropical climate allows for a year-round growing season.

And it’s not just local shrimp farmers who are having it rough.

While the price of shrimp is down because of cheap imports, Valley shrimpers’ profit margins have also been shrinking as energy costs have soared and feed costs have also risen, Reisinger said.

The value of the catch brought into the docks at the Port of Brownsville and Port Isabel fell from $59.8 million in 2001 to $46.5 million last year, Reisinger said, citing government statistics, which also include a small portion of fish for the Valley.

And the industry’s problems have driven many shrimp boat companies out of business.

In 2000, 365 shrimp trawlers were based at the Port of Brownsville and Port Isabel. Now there are just over 200, with the rest having been sold or abandoned.

Richard Moore is one who endures.

The 72-year-old owner of Moore Trawlers Inc., which has four shrimp boats, has been shrimping in the Valley since 1955, except for a two-year stint in the Army. He started in Port Isabel and moved to the Port of Brownsville when dock space got too tight.

He started with one boat, and then bought a second, third and fourth when he was making enough money for the purchases and maintenance — “and still making a good living,” he said.

But high fuel costs, government regulations and competition from shrimp farms in the Valley and other countries are putting a squeeze on his business, he said.

In 2001, Moore was getting an average of more than $5 a pound for his shrimp, but last season he averaged between $2.50 and $3 per pound.

Now he has just enough to pay for fuel, a little maintenance and dock space. Last season, with one boat out of commission with a broken engine, he brought in roughly $532,000 in revenue. But with 30 percent going to his crews, plus other expenses, he just broke even.

“The last six years, I ain’t made no money,” he said. “Every nickel that the boats made went back into the boats. I’d like to sell my boats, but nobody’s buying boats ’cause there’s no profit in it anymore.

“I live off of my Social Security check.”

Moore can burn 8,000 to 10,000 gallons of diesel fuel a month during the shrimping season, which in Texas generally starts in July and runs until May. Thirty days in the Gulf of Mexico can cost him between $20,000 and $22,000 in fuel alone, up from $6,000 to $8,000 in the old days.

“Cost of fuel is way, way, way out of line,” he said.

Moore also groused about environmental regulations requiring special metal fittings for shrimp nets that are designed to allow turtles and fish to swim though. The fittings amount to holes in nets, and he said he loses 10 percent to 15 percent of his shrimp catch because of them.

“The government is choking us down, too,” he said. “There’s just law after law after law.”

All told, he said he loses $15,000 to $20,000 because of the fittings and spends $60,000 to $70,000 extra in fuel per year per boat.

According to Jaenike, the Cameron County shrimp farmer, foreign competition wasn’t an issue during the 1980s. The next decade saw increasing competition from Central and South America, and things really started changing around Sept. 11, 2001, when a “perfect storm” hit the domestic shrimp market, he said.

The terrorist attacks put a damper on the market for luxury foods, and shrimp consumption declined. Around the same time, shrimp supply increased as shrimp farming in Asia gained steam. Asian farmers also switched to the same type of shrimp Jaenike sells. The price of shrimp dropped 30 percent to 40 percent.

Since 2001, shrimp supply hasn’t fallen below demand, although demand has been increasing in part because prices are so low, he said.

“Since then, we’ve really been trying to concentrate on marketing,” he said.

Harlingen Shrimp Farms is trying to capitalize on environmental regulations it has found cumbersome in the past by marketing its product as environmentally sustainable shrimp. The company is also trying to tap the fresh-never-frozen shrimp market.

Shrimp farmers, including Jaenike, are diversifying to raising fish as well, and another niche for shrimp farmers and trawlers alike is selling larger sized shrimp.

Despite the Valley’s shrimp industry woes, Reisinger, the Cameron County extension agent, remains optimistic.

“There will always be survivors in this,” he said. “We’ll always have an industry in this despite the many problems they face. It’s an extremely valuable economic engine for Cameron County.”

Last year was a “banner year” for pounds of shrimp produced, he said, and government forecasts predict this season will be average to above average.

“This last year, it was a damn good year” for some boats, Moore said. “Last year was the best year we’ve seen since 2002.”

As for the upcoming season, “we won’t know until we get out there,” he said.