Meet The Farmers

Featured Farmer of the Week

Thompson Prawn Farm

Thompson’s Prawn Farm is owned and operated by Joe Thompson . A former tobacco farmer, Joe began investigating prawn farming after he was forced to quit farming tobacoo due to increased government pressure on small farmers to exit the tobacco industry and a series of hip-joint replacement operations. “Prawn farming is a great alternative to farming tobacco because it gives me the ability to provide a popular food to the local seafood market and it is not labor intensive, which is a must due to my hip-joint replacement”, says Joe.

Joe Thompson added something new to his 78-acre farm this year: a two-acre pond full of jumbo shrimp, more deliciously known as prawns.

For Thompson, who used to grow tobacco, his shrimp farm isn’t just about making a living, but also about learning.

“I didn’t know if I could do it or not,” he said.

This month, he has been working hard to make sure his harvest shows up on local restaurant menus and in grocery stores. He’ll also be selling the prawns directly from his farm.

In some parts of the world, people call what we know as shrimp “prawns.” In other regions, prawns are large shrimp, or shrimp grown in freshwater.

The prawn season began in the early May for Thompson. That’s when he put 128,000 juvenile prawns into the 3 ponds . He described the underwater cash crop as looking like matchsticks “but half as long.”

They settled at the bottom of the dark pond, and for more than a month, he could only feed them and wait.

His pond, which is 9 feet deep, is connected to a concrete catch basin by a large pipe. When the time comes, he’ll drain the pond and scoop the prawns from the catch basin.

For many years, Thompson grew tobacco on his farm, which he and his wife, Geraldine, bought in 1979. The tobacco crops stopped in 1998 after he had hip surgery.

He and his son talked about what to do next, and then he came upon the idea of prawns.

Why prawns?

“I’m trying to get in something no one else is in,” he said.

For the last four years, Thompson has been learning about raising prawns by attending seminars, doing research and visiting other producers.

This new venture is easier on him, physically speaking, than tobacco farming was. To feed his prawns, for example, Thompson attaches a leaf blower to the back of a tractor. He drives the tractor on an 8-foot wide dirt path — he calls it his racetrack — around the pond, and uses the blower to shoot feed over the water.

Thompson’s slogan is, “You had the rest, now try the best.” He’ll sell the prawns from his home and thru the Virginia Natural Fish Company of which Joe is an owner member.

During the off-season, Thompson plans to add more ponds.