South Africa is now home to the first commercial biosecure closed shrimp farm in the world, which is based at the Coega Industrial Development Zone (IDZ) in Port Elizabeth.
The prawns will be exported to a select high profile market.
This facility combines computer driven control systems with biological science and boasts a software system valued at R35-million, and has diagnostic capabilities that can be monitored anywhere globally.
Prawns are generally very susceptible to disease, which has previously resulted in major losses of the population. Prawn farming is generally carried out through open-air ponds, which also bear the risk of the loss of prawns as a result of prawns being more prone to diseases.
Unlike most aquaculture facilities, the production of prawns at Coega is constant because the ponds are closed, water is filtered, and potential diseases are kept out, and the farm can be viewed as a factory to grow prawns.
