SIMPSON, Ill. — Grover Webb has a whopper of a success story in his shrimp farm. Now in business for 14 years, his operation produces 100,000 or so freshwater prawns a year.

But he’s also the first to admit wrangling shrimp for market is much different than beef cattle.

“I look at these shrimp as a livestock enterprise,” the farmer said. With an initial $25,000 investment, Webb not only raises prawns in six freshwater ponds but also grows a diverse offering in Pope County.

His operation is a 950-acre livestock, grain and produce farm with 500 acres of row crops, a 300-tree peach orchard, one raspberry high tunnel and a tomato high tunnel, as well as 30 sheep and 55 head of beef cows. The shrimp “project” is a spinoff of water and soil conservation efforts, since shrimp farming can be viewed as an alternative to other ag land uses that cause soil to erode.

The land was suited for the project, and Webb decided to give freshwater shrimp farming a try.  That was in 2000 – a time when the Illinois Department of Agriculture and the Department of Economic Opportunity were promoting alternative agriculture ventures.

One of the state initiatives was aquaculture as an additional product to diversify a farm’s revenue streams. That’s also when the Southern Illinois Prawn Growers Assoc. was formed with an initial 70 members. Today, that number has leveled off to 20.

Most prawns grown in this southern part of Illinois are Giant Malaysian prawns (Macrobrachium rosenbergii). Farm-grown prawns have lower levels of fat, sodium and iodine than their wild counterparts, as well as higher protein content.

Taste-wise, Russell Waggoner, a Metropolis, Ill., grower, said the meat is sweeter and denser than most shrimp and mostly resembles lobster meat. “And they only take about seven months to grow,” he said, adding the region’s climate is perfect for this cycle.

Growing them is a three-part process. First, the larvae are grown indoors until they are large enough and the season is warm enough to be inoculated into carefully aerated ponds. The juvenile prawns are stocked in late May and harvested the last of September.

Right before harvest, the feeding is stopped to reduce the size of their mud veins and to yield a fresher, crisper taste. The harvesting is a wet and muddy process of casting nets across the pond and dragging them to the other end.

The prawns are then picked into buckets for cleaning and preparing for market. After harvest, prawns are sold whole on ice or processed in a state-inspected facility.

Webb tends to sell most of his 3,000-pound harvest at the Golconda Shrimp Festival, hosted each September. All manner of prawn are served, from grilled skewers to shrimp with linguine. They also are sold by the pound for about $16.

All food vendors are required to offer at least one dish incorporating locally cultivated freshwater shrimp if they want to participate in the festival.

One of Webb’s favorite questions is, what is the difference between shrimp and prawns? “A lot of people ask that question. So I asked this chef in Chicago that came down to the shrimp festival one year.

“And he gave the example; he said, ‘You’re selling your skewers of shrimp for $5 apiece and calling them freshwater shrimp.’ He said, ‘In my restaurant, I call them prawns and I would charge you $50.’”