Prawn farming or fresh water prawn farming is a new occupation in Ban Lueam district. Last five years ago, local farmers observed that water is slight salty. Then farmers decided to undertake prawn farming. The result is fresh water prawns were well suited to the kind of water.
Prawn farming requires farmers to pay careful attention to all the steps of production – from the preparation of the pond through to the harvesting of the market sized prawns. Nonetheless, prawn farming has become very popular, and local farmers have become famous for their prawns. The most important step is the preparation of the prawn pond. The pond should be drained and allowed to dry out completely through the heat of the sun. This will ensure that all small animals at the bottom of the pond have died. Prawns have lots of enemies such as small insects that live in water, snakes, catfish and other small fish. The farmer must ensure that none of these animals are left in the pond before refilling it. During the feeding stage, the farmers have to feed their prawns once a day in the late evenings. The farmers do this by throwing food around the edges of the ponds. At night prawns like to move close to the shallow edges of the water. By throwing food into these areas because there will be less chance that other small animals or fish that might be taken food from prawns.
Prawn farming requires an important investment by the farmers. So it needs to be carefully managed. However, this type of farming provides farmers with a good income source compared to other farming. Farmers can expect to get 150 baht to 300 baht a kilo for their prawns, depending on their size. Currently, prawn farming is a very attractive job for the locals of Ban Lueam district.