JIZAN, 5 November 2006 — Minister of Agriculture Dr. Fahd Balghunaim visited Arabian Shrimp Company (ASC), an economic offset project, at its location 60 km north of Jizan, on the occasion of the tour of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah to the city to promote infrastructure and industry investment. Dr. Balghunaim, formerly deputy minister of fisheries and governor of SWCC, has a special interest in sustainable aquaculture projects such as ASC.
With a total SR1 billion capital requirement to be dispersed over several phases, the ASC is a vertically integrated shrimp producer with phased investments in a high health broodstock center, hatchery and grow-out ponds, a quality shrimp processing plant with value-added product as well as bulk packing lines. ASC will have 5,000 hectares of ponds under production in the final stages of its seven-year project. A defined training program already in operation with Saudi men will bring the local rural population into the aquaculture industry.
ASC has taken a lead in aquaculture-associated environmental issues. It presented a comprehensive environmental baseline survey and developed an environmental monitoring program as part of its overall plan to protect and sustain the clean Red Sea environment as it raised protein-rich food sources using Red Sea water.
The project flanks both the coastal area along the Red Sea and a local kwahr or lagoon. Each demands specific environmental consideration, particularly the kwahr area, which is lined with a narrow strip of native mangrove. Mangrove is an environmentally protected resource as its root system protects local fisheries by sheltering fingerlings from predators, thus promoting artisanal fishing, a traditional local industry, as well as healthy ocean waters.
ASC also focuses on bringing local rural women into the food processing industry. Women worldwide are preferred as employees for shrimp processing, as they do high-quality work quickly.
ASC, with the assistance of Noura Alturki, who holds a masters degree in science from Oxford University, evaluated the socioeconomic status of women in the thirteen villages close to the shrimp processing plant in order to understand how women who had never worked outside the home could be brought successfully into the work force.
The information gathered will be integrated into a comprehensive training and employment plan for processing plant staffed and managed by Saudi women.
Following a lunch at the company camp with General Manager Michael Stirnberg and shareholder representatives from Aqua Farms, the Saudi Offset Limited Partnership, Arab Authority for Agricultural Investment and Development (AAAID) and Aquad Company for Commerce, the minister and his staff toured the farm area to gain a full understanding of the scope of the project.
