World Aquaculture 49 with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Florida Sea Grant, and the commercial hard clam industry. Hard clam (Mercenaria mercenaria) aquaculture is a relatively new industry in Florida. During the 1990s, successful job retraining programs placed hundreds of former commercial fishermen, impacted by regulatory closures, into small-scale shellfish aquaculture businesses. In 1991, production of hard clams in Florida was valued at US$1 million with less than 6 million clams produced by 41 growers. Just a decade later, 336 growers in 9 coastal counties produced 142 million clams with dock side sales valued at US$18 million. The total economic impact of this fast growing, marine resource industry was estimated to be US$34 million in 2001. The CLAMMRS project was designed to: “provide a better understanding of clams and their environment to increase production, farm efficiency, and profitability and thereby enhance sustainable development of open-water clam farming in Florida.” Through adoption of remote sensing technologies by the CLAMMRS project, timely water quality and weather information is made available to the clam-farming industry for management decision making. With this information, growers have begun to refine and improve management practices, compare crop losses with water quality events and identify trends in environmental conditions critical to clam health and production. For example, growers have been able to make immediate decisions on whether to plant or transfer young clams based upon current salinity and water temperature readings. Additionally, Sea Grant aquaculture specialists in Florida and three other states, South Carolina, Virginia and Massachusetts, were involved with the USDA Risk Management Agency in developing a cultivated clam crop insurance program, the first such program for a commercially cultured marine species in the United States. Involvement in this program will have major implications on the longterm viability of the hard clam aquaculture industry. For more information on the CLAMMRS project and other information on Florida hard clam initiatives, please visit the following web sites: http://shellfish.ifas.ufl.edu/ clammrs.htm. For live water monitoring data for this program go to: www.FloridaAquaculture.com, click on “LIVE Water Monitoring”. The Molluscan Broodstock Program The Molluscan Broodstock Program (MBP), administered by Oregon State University and funded through grants from USDA’s Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service Special Research Grants Program, the Western Regional Aquaculture Center, in collaboration with the USDA-ARS Shellfish Genetics Program and the state Sea Grant programs in Oregon and Alaska, is a classic collaborative partnership between Federal agenBagging hard clam seed for out-planting on Florida’s Pelican Reef. (Photo: Leslie Sturmer) Intertidal broodstock repository at Netarts Bay, OR on an incoming tide. (Photo: Kiril Chang-Gilhooly) Display of shells used to survey consumer preferences based upon shell color in Pacific oysters. (Photo: Ford Evans, Oregon State University)
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