A tropical prawn on an aquaculture farm, September 26, 2023 in Idrac-Respailles, in Gers (AFP/Lionel BONAVENTURE)
The Gers, a region famous for its foie gras, is now home to a more unexpected specialty: tropical prawns which, thanks to a caring breeder and ever-warmer summers, is taking its place in the land of ducks.
“It’s true that it’s not common to find this kind of product here! But fortunately, there are people who are a little bit out of the ordinary.” Chef Julien Razemon is all smiles, his 3 kg bag of fresh prawns in hand.
This week, in his gourmet restaurant, he plans to prepare shellfish in tartare to highlight their almost pearly transparency and their crunch, linked to the freshness of a product which, previously, came to him from Bangladesh, India or Ecuador.
Géraud Laval shows his tropical prawns in his aquaculture farm, September 26, 2023 in Idrac-Respailles, in Gers (AFP/Lionel BONAVENTURE)
“We import 100,000 tonnes of shrimp per year into France, or around two kilos per inhabitant,” underlines Géraud Laval, 50, the iconoclastic creator of “Gambas d’ici” from whom Julien Razemon came to get his supplies.
On the basis of this “phenomenal market”, this veterinarian and doctor in epidemiology in search of a new adventure had the idea of launching in 2017 the first French shrimp farm, 100% “made in” Gers, where he settled down with his wife and children after traveling for a long time.
– 3-4 shrimp per square meter –
“If I embarked on this project, it is in a very committed way because I believe that we can really produce differently, think differently about production and consumption,” he explains to AFP.
“Producing differently” meant going against the factory farms at the end of the world which decimate coastal ecosystems and practice intensive farming with several hundred shrimp per square meter and large volumes of fish meal to feed them. .
Géraud Laval on his aquaculture farm, September 26, 2023 in Idrac-Respailles, in Gers (AFP/Lionel BONAVENTURE)
In Idrac-Respaillès, a Gascon village of just over 200 souls where Géraud Laval dug his three ponds (1.5 hectares in total), there are three to four shrimp per m2 and for food, the shrimp farmer prefers to fertilize water (with sunflower meal), small water worms and insects doing the rest.
The other strong idea of the project was also its adaptability to the environment. “Climatologists converge on this observation, which is that temperatures are increasing,” underlines Géraud Laval.
“This summer, we had a record here at 42 degrees,” he says, and the 2023 season was that of his best yields precisely because the shrimp he chose develops particularly well in water whose temperature exceeds on average 25 degrees.
– Invasive risk eliminated –
This specificity linked to temperatures also eliminates the invasive risk, the tropical shrimp cannot survive in water less than 14 degrees, such as that of a Gers river in the middle of winter, points out Mr. Laval who, from from the end of November, abandons prawns to raise trout.
Géraud Laval (d) carries a net of tropical prawns in his aquaculture farm, September 26, 2023 in Idrac-Respailles, in Gars (AFP/Lionel BONAVENTURE)
And for even more environmental safety, its pools are in a closed circuit, without any contact with neighboring waterways.
Enough, the breeder hopes, to overcome the reluctance of public authorities sometimes worried about the idea of issuing operating authorizations for tropical shrimp farming.
Géraud Laval dreams of being the initiator of a movement and he hopes to spread his breeding concept: he chairs the Interprofessional Freshwater Shrimp Association (AICED) and willingly trains breeders who want to get started.
This is particularly the case for certain fish farmers in the ponds of Dombes (Ain), the leading French region for the production of pond fish.
Tropical prawns on an aquaculture farm, September 26, 2023 in Idrac-Respailles, in Gars (AFP/Lionel BONAVENTURE)
But in this territory, the State blocks authorizations.
Questioned in March on this subject by the local deputy, Jérome Buisson (RN), the Minister of Agriculture Marc Fesneau promised to harmonize the State’s view of these initiatives and to facilitate authorizations.
“It seems to me that we need projects like these,” he said.
© 2023 AFP
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