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Groton Daily Independent
Saturday, March 03, 2018 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 232 ~ 17 of 60
the pools and tanks heated in this climate, Tran said.
Even so, he hopes to expand his operation in spring, Aberdeen American News reported .
Tran also hopes to increase interest in raising prawns. He sells some live prawns through his website
— ktprawns.com — for people to raise at home and has a YouTube channel where he describes different aspects of growing the crustaceans.
“As a country we’ve imported hundreds of thousands of tons of shrimp from overseas,” he said. “I’m trying to encourage more people to do this.”
Aquaculture is not a large portion of the agriculture industry in South Dakota, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s annual census. There were 14 farms that sold aquaculture products in 2012. That includes cat sh, trout, other food sh, bait sh, ornamental sh, sport or game sh and other aqua- culture products.
Aquaculture is the raising of aquatic animals or the cultivation of aquatic plants for food.
The total market value of aquaculture in South Dakota was just shy of $2.5 million in 2012 — the most recent numbers available. An aquaculture survey is done only every ve years in the state.
For perspective, the market value of all agriculture products in South Dakota was more than $10 billion in 2012.
Regions of the country where freshwater prawn farming has been seriously attempted include Kentucky, northern Mississippi, Texas, Tennessee, California, the Carolinas and Florida, according to Greg Lutz, professor at the Aquaculture Research Station at Louisiana State University. He’s also editor-in-chief of Aquaculture Magazine.
There has been interest in producing marine shrimp in low-salinity indoor systems throughout the Upper Midwest, Lutz said. However, those ventures are scattered in various places and few seem to last long enough to turn a pro t, he said.
While millions of tons of marine shrimp are farmed each year around the world, there is almost no viable marine shrimp farming in the U.S. due to unsuitable climate conditions and high production costs, he said. There are some scattered “mom and pop” freshwater prawn operations, mostly in inland regions, Lutz said. That is because most of the retail price of shrimp in those regions involves transportation and cold
storage, allowing local producers to compete by marketing their products live or fresh. ___
Information from: Aberdeen American News, http://www.aberdeennews.com
Man accused of killing Andover woman, setting apartment re
ANDOVER, S.D. (AP) — A man accused of killing a woman in Andover before starting her apartment on re is facing numerous charges.
State prosecutors say 36-year-old Jose Quinones-Rodriguez, of Aberdeen, was indicted Thursday on rst-degree murder, arson and burglary, among other charges,
Authorities say Quinones-Rodriguez shot and killed 25-year-old Tawny Rockwood between Feb. 8 and 9. Court documents show that Quinones-Rodriguez and Rockwood had been in a relationship for about four months and had a history of verbal confrontations.
Quinones-Rodriguez is being held on $1 million cash bond.
‘Top two’ primary backers fail to gather enough support
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — A group trying to bring a “top two” primary system to South Dakota didn’t collect enough valid signatures to get the issue onto the November ballot, the state’s chief elections of cial said Friday.
Secretary of State Shantel Krebs’ of ce said in a statement that a random sampling of signatures col- lected by Open Primaries South Dakota found that the campaign submitted about 25,500 valid signatures, not the nearly 28,000 needed for the proposed constitutional amendment to go to voters. The rejection could be challenged in court.