Home Care In Sulphur, KY

SULPHUR, Ky. — Like many of the farms dotting Kentucky, this Henry County spot raises chickens, hogs and some beef cattle.

But it's the 1,500 to 2,000 pounds of shrimp raised annually at Faul Family Riverside Farm that sets it apart from the majority of farms situated on the 12.4 million acres of farmland across the commonwealth.

"Recently, there's been a massive push towards purchasing local," Andre Faul Jr., the farm manager, told The Courier Journal. "I feel like that movement has really picked up over the past couple years, and local seafood fits right into that."

While the notion of raising saltwater shrimp in landlocked Kentucky may seem something of a fantasy, Andrew Ray, chair of the School of Aquaculture and Aquatic Science and associate professor at Kentucky State University, said there exists real opportunity for farmers to diversify their products — making them more competitive with the addition of aquaculture items such as shrimp.

In 2023, the U.S. posted a roughly $20 billion trade deficit on seafood, with most imports coming from Canada, Chile, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. And as President Donald Trump continues to push an agenda focused on reducing trade deficits, in turn bringing industries stateside, the seafood industry has already seen an Executive Order aimed at "restoring American seafood competitiveness."

"Shrimp is the No. 1 most consumed seafood item in the United States," Ray said. "... A lot of it comes from Southeast Asia, some Latin America, and we just don't know much about how it was raised, how it was packaged, how old it is, anything like that

"So, in a place like Kentucky, we see a big opportunity to grow seafood."

A few above-ground swimming pools

Nestled off a one-lane, winding road in Henry County sits the 100-acre Faul Family Riverside Farm.

Visitors are greeted by a restored 1800s era barn that once stored tobacco and later housed Belgian draft horses. Today, that barn is used for the monthly farm-to-table dinners — including the acclaimed shrimp boil — Faul and his family put on for visitors or events, such as weddings.

And a short trek through a field takes visitors to the shrimp Quonset hut, a fully insulated semicircle metal building boasting high humidity and a few above-ground swimming pools fashioned into sophisticated shrimp farming tanks.

The farm, which has been Faul's for a decade, is a small operation run by family. The shrimp operation began in 2017.

On any given day, Faul, who has a master's degree in aquaculture, can be seen obsessively checking the water quality in his tanks, assessing the symbiosis of his shrimp and bacteria needed to support growth, or adjusting feed levels. His wife, Whitney, also works the farm, raising the land animals and helping bag and prepare the shrimp for customers.

Each tank can hold about 5,000 shrimp, which are shipped to Faul's farm from a hatchery in Florida. It takes about three and a half months for the shrimp Faul raises to be ready for consumption.

Faul Family Riverside Farm is a direct-to-consumer operation, currently selling at the La Grange Farmers' Market and Artisans on Saturdays from April through October. Additionally, customers in Southern Indiana, Louisville, Frankfort, Lexington and parts of Northern Kentucky can score free home delivery of shrimp if they purchase a minimum of $100 worth.

"I can tell folks exactly what has gone into producing the shrimp, what they've eaten, what environment they've been raised in," Faul said. "Wild-caught shrimp, you don't know what they've been eating. We have issues with pollution in our oceans; there could be heavy metals, mercury, all that stuff in them."

'The demand is there'

Faul's farm isn't the only aquaculture site in the state. Ray, with KSU, said there are five marine shrimp farms, a largemouth bass farm, and others scattered across the state, including the expansive facilities at the university in Frankfort.

"The demand is there," Ray said. "People realize the value of fresh, local, healthy seafood — not to mention producing more things domestically is in the spotlight right now."

The global aquaculture industry is now responsible for half of all seafood consumed by humans, and is largely dominated by non-American countries, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

But Ray thinks the industry is primed to change that now, noting technological advancements that have made it more affordable for U.S. farmers and the growing consumer sentiment for fresh local food.

"A lot of times, we've seen something like shrimp, if you bring it to the market, people are really attracted to it because it's new and exciting," Ray said. "It's also fresh, local, sustainable, healthy. You can feel good providing this product to your family and feeding it to them at night, and you can be confident that it was raised the right way."

Both Faul and Ray said another consumer advantage besides the local sourcing is the freshness of the product. Faul doesn't use any additives or preservatives in his shrimp since he harvests them a la cart for customers, meaning the product isn't frozen and flown into the market and doesn't sit on store shelves for days or weeks at a time.

"By the time you get seafood from the coast into Kentucky, you can get it overnight delivered, I know, but still it's going to be several days old," Ray said. "Andre can provide shrimp that are swimming the day of you cooking them for your family."

Shrimp farming challenges

Despite the growing demand for seafood in the U.S., and farmers like Faul willing to bring the product to market, the industry faces a slew of obstacles.

"It comes with its own challenges," Faul said.

From the initial capital investment to start a shrimp farm to the constant battle against advertising that positions wild-caught seafood as superior to the difficulties in raising product consistently through the year in a non-coastal climate to the lack of understanding by consumers about domestically farmed shrimp, Faul stays busy.

"About 50% of what we do on the farm is actually raising the product, and the other 50% is marketing and sales," Faul said.

One of the biggest challenges the industry faces in Ray's perspective is that consumer markets are often flooded with cheap imported products, making it "hard for our farmers to compete against that" since the fresh domestic product comes with a higher price tag.

Faul retails his shrimp for about $20 per pound.

"When a chef's looking at putting something on a menu, oftentimes what they're looking at is the price of that item, and trying to make the most money per plate, but I think the opportunity here is to tell a different story," Ray said. "These are local shrimp. These are local products that are producing jobs for our farmers."

While these tangible challenges are very real for the industry, the challenge of battling identities and decades long marketing campaigns may be the toughest for those in aquaculture to overcome. Faul and Ray both note they regularly run into consumers who believe the aquaculture industry is unsustainable, dirty, and unhealthy.

"That's been my biggest misconception I've seen with consumers. As soon as they hear farm, they're like, 'No, we don't want that, because we know what farm seafood is,'" Faul said. "And then comes the consumer education to try to tell them about our product and how it's different."

For centuries, Americans have domesticated and farmed most foods consumed today. Yet, seafood has a much shorter history with domestication and farming, spanning only the last 50 to 100 years, making it seem to still be an oddity for many consumers.

"Seafood is one of the last things that people aren't used to eating from a farm," Ray said. "Really, you go to Kroger, and everything there's grown on farms."

For Faul, aquaculture isn't solely his business enterprise; it's a way in which he sees the local communities building up more resilience and independence from the global supply chain and any volatility trade wars, pandemics and other uncertainties can cause — and he believes Kentucky can be at the forefront.

"This is going on in your backyard," Ray said. "This can be ground zero for the development of a more sustainable seafood industry."

Contact business reporter Olivia Evans at [email protected] or on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter at @oliviamevans_.

This story was updated to add a video.

At first glance, the Faul Family Riverside Farm in Sulphur, Kentucky, resembles any other, with long stretches of grass where cows, chicken and pigs graze. But beyond its barn and the idyllic country farmhouse is a building with two above-ground swimming pools, each holding about 5,000 saltwater shrimp.

Kentucky is a landlocked state far from any saltwater, yet the Faul farm is one of three that raise shrimp in the state — the others in Lexington and a small operation in Lawrenceburg.

The farm, co-managed by father-son pair Andre Faul Sr. and Andre Faul Jr., practices non-conventional farming, with shrimp being just one of its newest ventures. And even though it's a new part of their small 100-acre farm, they have already seen tons of success, with regular customers at both the La Grange and Bardstown Road farmers' markets and two Louisville restaurants, Harvest and Buck's Restaurant, that consistently buy and serve their product.

So how did a farm in a landlocked state become a go-to for local restaurateurs and consumers for saltwater shrimp?

It all started with the younger Faul. Always interested in animals and filled with a desire to work outside, he studied environmental biology at the University of Louisville. That interest soon grew to include aquaculture — the raising of aquatic animals for food — and he decided to pursue his master's degree in it at the University of Miami in Florida, a state with far more aquaculture opportunities.

In 2015, Faul Jr.'s parents bought the near 100-acre property that is now the farm and asked if he'd like to move back to Kentucky to manage it. Faul Jr. knew it would be a good opportunity to try something new, thinking he'd have to leave aquaculture behind.

"But then the whole shrimp thing came up," Faul Jr. said.

The younger Faul was searching for aquaculture opportunities in Kentucky when he came across Kentucky State University's aquaculture department.

KSU had begun raising saltwater shrimp in an effort to provide former tobacco farmers who went out of business with a different and unique option to produce a high-value product, Faul Jr. said. The younger Faul toured KSU's facilities and developed a partnership with the university to begin his shrimp venture.

After receiving a grant through the university, Faul Jr. purchased the shrimp equipment that now sits on the farm.

KSU, a land-grant institution, partners with small farmers in the state to help them "get up and going," said Andrew Ray, an associate professor of aquaculture at the university.

The partnership allows KSU to aide Faul Jr.'s shrimp production by maintaining the system and testing its water samples. In exchange, Faul Jr. provides the university with data related to water parameters, marketing and sales.

Working with farmers like Faul Jr. provides KSU with what Ray calls "real world data" to understand the feasibility and logistics of the actual farming.

Before the post-larvae shrimp arrive at the Faul property, they spend their nursery stage at KSU — a stage Faul Jr. calls the most critical for any animal.

"Giving the animal a good start is critical to how they’re going to grow later in their life," Faul Jr. said.

After a month in the nursery stage, the shrimp are transported to the farm.

The outside temperature is one of the only problems that comes with raising shrimp in Kentucky, Faul Jr. said. Shrimp thrive in water roughly 85 degrees Fahrenheit, and because the facility that houses Faul Jr.'s shrimp tanks is not insulated, Faul Jr. can only raise shrimp in the summer.

But by the end of this year, the younger Faul said he will be able to raise shrimp year-round once he gets a new building with temperature control, allowing him to work with the shrimp through their nursery stage as well.

Faul Jr. tries to mimic nature as much as possible when rearing the shrimp. The contents of the near-4,500 gallon tanks are simple: water, salt mix, shrimp and shrimp feed. It is operated through a biofloc system, which relies on the symbiosis of shrimp and bacteria.

The shrimp spend about four months on the farm until they are ready to be harvested.

This summer will mark the farm's second year producing shrimp. Faul Jr. said in its trial year, the shrimp was well received, both by the Fauls' customers and chefs in the Kentuckiana area. Patrons at the La Grange Farmers' Market raved about the shrimp's taste and freshness, which the younger Faul said was rewarding.

As far as taste goes, Faul Jr. said the shrimp he raises have a sweeter flavor — without seasoning — than shrimp purchased at a grocery store.

Jeff Dailey, a chef at Harvest Restaurant, 624 E. Market St., which only cooks with ingredients from local farms, uses Faul Jr.'s shrimp to make shrimp and grits. He said he enjoys being able to offer his customers local seafood, which he has fewer opportunities to do in Kentucky. He said the shrimp was a quality product.

"That has a lot to do with freshness," Dailey said. "I mean he’s pulling shrimp out of the tank and then delivering it to me that day — you can’t really get it better than that."

The younger Faul said raising shrimp in Kentucky has far more advantages than disadvantages.

"It's very hard to find fresh never frozen shrimp in Kentucky, so that gives us a good niche market to take advantage of," Faul Jr. said.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimated that 80% of seafood in America is imported, with shrimp being one of its top imports by volume. Faul Jr. said this doesn't offer consumers as many choices and doesn't allow them to know where the shrimp comes from or what was sprayed on the animal in the farming process.

The phrase "farmed shrimp" carries negative connotations the younger Faul tries to differentiate himself from. He said his farming of shrimp involves more oversight and regulation than farmed shrimp from overseas.

Giving consumers the reassurance of where their food comes from is one of the key philosophies of the Faul Family Riverside Farm that is shared between both Fauls.

In fact, the desire to know the origin of his food is one of the reasons the elder Faul wanted to have his own farm in the first place. As a child, he grew up on a citrus farm in South Africa, named Riverside Farm, the namesake for his current farm.

Upon the family's immigration to America in 2001, the elder Faul began to realize a lot of the food he consumed was processed and he didn't know whether it contained antibiotics or not. That notion spurred him to start his own farm so he could sell a product with a transparent origin.

The Fauls' method of farming is known as regenerative agriculture, which promotes creating healthy and sustainable food. The Fauls avoid pesticides and don't give their animals antibiotics.

One of the farm's strategies to avoid the use of antibiotics is to prevent the potential for diseases. The Fauls move their animals to a new patch of grass anywhere from twice a day to once a week, depending on the type of animal. This movement-based pasture model helps ensure animals aren't standing in their own manure for an extended period of time.

When they do, they are at an increased risk of disease. Moving the animals to a new field also allows the field to regenerate from the manure. After the animals move, the field will not be used again for anywhere between 60 to 90 days, allowing it to fully regenerate.

Faul Jr. said more often than not, conventional agriculture methods destroy nature rather than work with it. Regenerative farming does that by mimicking nature: Animals wouldn't usually stay in the same place.

"Our main goal is just to provide healthy, safe food and to regenerate this land here to be able to provide, pass that on to future generations, and be a benefit to the environment, not a detriment," Faul Jr. said.

It's a belief that applies to the food they grow and harvest, as well.

"You can be assured it’s good for you, good for your family," Faul Jr. said. "... My belief is we need more farms like this: more small farms, local farms — get back to the way it used to be."

Kentucky is dominated by small family farms like the Fauls, with the average size being right around 170 acres, according to KY Food and Farm. Of farms in Kentucky, 66% are small and average sales of less than $10,000 a year.

And with a small farm, many times family members are working side-by-side.

"There's a lot of value in working with your family," Faul Jr. said. "(You) can clash heads sometimes, get in disagreements and things, but I think I find it very fortunate to be able to work so closely with my parents."

The younger Faul said everyone in the family has been involved in the farm someway, whether it was helping it get started, managing the website or coordinating weddings at the farm's event barn.

"We are at the moment operating as a family," Faul Sr. said. "... It’s nice to see my grandson growing up on the farm. I’m hoping I can give him the same experience that I had growing up."

FAUL FAMILY RIVERSIDE FARM

The Faul Family Riverside Farm sells shrimp on its website, faulriversideky.com, along with chicken, eggs, pork, bratwurst, bacon, steak, roast and brisket, available for home delivery. You can also find them at the La Grange Farmers' Market, 100 W Main St., La Grange, Kentucky 40031, on Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The farm also hosts monthly "Chat & Chew" events. The July 13 event is a farm tour followed by a pasture raised chicken meal. For more information, visit faulriversideky.com.