Jackson Kimle (Agricultural Business, 2016) recently gave a tour of a Hampton-based indoor shrimp farm to a group from the Start Something CALS Student Incubator. The dialogue between Kimle and the ISU students touched in issues ranging from water treatment,  shrimp health, business model, market development, feed, and more. Kimle's business, Midland Seafood, is working to launch multiple contract shrimp production farms in Iowa in coming years.

What are the significant problems Midland needs to solve?

"At the highest level, we're working to create a high quality protein closer to the market," Kimle explains. "Shrimp are warm-climate creatures, so we're doing it indoors. We re-use and recirculate almost all the water, so there have been significant technology problems to solve in order to efficiently remove and recycle dissolved nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus. We've essentially replicated the natural cycle of how the ocean does things, but using technology."

Midland Seafood has pioneered use of algae in water treatment for recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS). With inspiration from another Iowa State University alumnus, Martin Gross (Ph.D. Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering 2015), and the algae technology he developed for municipal waste water treatment at Gross-Wen Technologies. 

"We saw what Martin Gross and team at Gross-Wen Technologies were doing to treat municipal waste water and were inspired to develop algae-based technologies for indoor aquaculture," Kimle commented. "Algae captures nutrients and carbon from the air, leaving the water purified and oxygenated in a single one-step wastewater treatment system. The nutrient-dense algae are then recovered to be used as a new regenerative fertilizer for Iowa’s agricultural land. This zero-discharge technology makes it one of the most sustainable forms of aquaculture today."

Kimle explains the winding technology development process. "My co-founder, Matt Ellis, has been great at looking at adjacent industries like municipal wastewater treatment. He's very inventive and has created unique filtration systems and designs." 

Ellis (Horticulture, 2019) has worked alongside Kimle since he was a student at Iowa State University.

Kimle explains the contract production business model. "Farmers are familiar with it from swine and poultry. Our first three contract producers are early adopters, and were interested in leading in this new type of protein production." 

Ted Hammes (Hampton), Ken Reed (Washington), and Landon Loftsgard (Redfield) are the first three contract farm sites for Midland. "It's a new revenue stream, a means to diversify their farm and business, and a way to bring their kids into a new part of the operation," Kimle explains.

"What about the market for shrimp?" asks a student. "Is this like an alt-protein or something?"

Kimle laughs. "Shrimp isn't on the level of pork, beef, or chicken, but it's the highest per capita seafood consumed in the United States. We import about 1.75 billion pounds of shrimp per year and consume more than 2 billion pounds, more than 5 pounds per person per year. Midland has a long ways to go to start to make a dent in a 2 billion pound market. But we have a high-quality, great-tasting product that we know people love. The shrimp has a sweet taste, a wonderful texture, and it's great for you."