Shellfish farming in Maine is in the process of transitioning from a number of hobby and side-job farms to an industry of full-time businesses. The industry, with its recent growth, is at a critical point. Back of the envelope calculations and "just wingin' it" are no longer going to cut it. In order to strengthen Maine's chances for success, the Maine Aquaculture Association has launched the development of a series of Maine aquaculture business support tools to address some of the industry's most pressing issues: insufficient access to capital, inadequate business and production planning, and limited risk management and crop insurance options.
The first step of this process is to complete a series of benchmarking studies, which will provide lenders with standard metrics for assessing loan applications, and will allow farmers to compare their performance to industry standards. The benchmarking studies, in part, will inform the second component of the support tools: business and production planning. Results from the benchmarking studies, along with data-based shellfish growth models, are helping to shape separate, yet interlinked business and production plans. These plans will allow farmers to virtually plan, manage, and experiment with their business model, production cycles, and cash flow, while providing a platform to measure their actual performance. The benchmarking data and business-production plans will then be used to inform the Maine Aquaculture Association's work with administrative officials on creating improved crop insurance options for shellfish farms in Maine, including an assessment on the feasibility of a Maine-specific crop insurance option. All of these data, tools, and insurance options are being used by the Maine Aquaculture Association to develop a best risk management practices guide for shellfish farms. The guide will be distributed across the industry, where farmers will be able to roll them out in conjunction with their new business planning tools and risk management strategies.
This presentation will begin by highlighting preliminary findings from the first-of-its-kind Maine shellfish benchmarking study. It will then explain how the study helped to inform the business-production plans, and outline the plans, pointing out how they were shaped through feedback from farmers. Last, the presentation will detail how these efforts, along with other meetings and cooperation, are helping to shape the future of shellfish best risk management practices and crop insurance in Maine.