A Bioeconomic Analysis of Sea Scallop (Placopecten Magellanicus) Aquaculture in the Gulf of Maine

Aquaculture is the fastest growing food production sector in the world. In the Northwest Atlantic, interest in Sea Scallop (Placopecten magellanicus) (hereafter scallop) aquaculture has grown rapidly in the last decade. In the U.S., scallops support a ~$1 billion USD industry with nearly$500 million coming from imports. By comparison, the U.S. exports only ~$139 million USD of scallops annually. This substantial trade imbalance and strong domestic demand has created an opportunity for a farmed product to capture a share of the market. However, technical, regulatory, and, perhaps most importantly, economic challenges have stifled the growth of scallop aquaculture in the Northwest Atlantic. We performed semi-structured interviews (n = 7) with the majority of scallop farmers in Maine, USA to parameterize a scallop aquaculture bioeconomic model. To identify production bottlenecks and assess the influence of various biological and market variables on farm-scale success, we conducted financial simulations for farms of various sizes targeting either live whole scallops or the traditionally consumed shucked adductor muscle meat . The end product (“whole” or “meat”) had a large influence on the profitability of farms. For example, farms selling \u3e 200,000 whole scallops year-1 were profitable. However, all farms selling shucked meats generated negative returns. Labor made up the greatest portion of costs in all model simulations and increased linearly with farm size, representing a significant bottleneck. Farm value was most sensitive to changes in market price, time to market, and annual sales. Businesses selling whole scallops can potentially be successful, but regulatory or labor mechanization issues could hinder further expansion of the industry. Our analysis suggests four strategies to increase farmed scallop production in the Northwest Atlantic: (1) develop methods to mechanize low density net culture, (2) optimize net stocking densities, (3) build site selection tools that decrease time to market, and (4) invest in end-markets and biotoxin testing for whole scallops. Diversifying the shellfish aquaculture sector by increasing the viability of scallop aquaculture has the potential to play a key role in increasing the economic resilience of coastal communities

Maine seaweed benchmarking: Economically assessing the growth of an emerging sector

Seaweed farming in Maine, USA has grown exponentially over the last 5 years. Our work builds upon a prior Maine aquaculture sector benchmarking study to assess changes between the 2017 and 2022 harvest seasons. We interviewed 16 farmers who collectively harvested over 1 million lbs. (wet weight) of seaweed, ∼22 times the harvest volume from the 2017 season. We observed three notable improvements on kelp farms in Maine between 2017 and 2022: (1) median seaweed yield grew by 28%, from 3.3 to 4.24 lbs./ft.; (2) labor efficiency improved by 1,275%, from a median of 7.55 to 103.8 lbs. harvested per hour of labor and management input; and (3) median net margin per pound harvested increased from −$6.41 to$0.16/lb. These gains can likely be attributed to increased farmer knowledge, “learning by doing,” extension support, improved seed production, and increases in scale. When benchmarks were recalculated according to three size groupings, we found that net margins ($/lb.) increased and breakeven price decreased with farm size (total lbs. harvested), indicating economies of scale. We found that fishermen, shellfish farmers, and other members of the working waterfront continue to leverage seaweed farming as a worthwhile source of supplementary income.</p