Room 6

There has been marked growth in the local food movement. These markets are sometimes perceived as providing an opportunity for beginning small-scale farmers who cannot yet take advantage of economies of scale and have higher production costs. They often have low barriers to entry and consumers are often willing to pay premium prices. Small-to-medium sized oyster farms have two general strategies to get their product to market: selling directly into local farmed half-shell market or selling dockside to a wholesaler. The direct-sale strategy provides farmers with the highest price potential but requires farmers to act as both farmer and distributor. It also limits sales to whatever the local market can absorb. Oysters that the local farmed half-shell market cannot absorb will likely end up in the lower-value traditional half-shell market or the shucked-oyster market. The wholesale strategy allows the farmer to focus on production and reach distant markets, but reduces price potential. 
This analysis investigates the relative performance of these two marketing strategies using Monte Carlo simulation to estimate local market supply, demand, market shares, prices, and profit. The local market is modeled based on several factors, including the number and size of competing local oyster farms, the number of local buyers, and number of oysters demanded per buyer. Results indicate that a marketing strategy focused on selling product at the farmgate to a wholesaler is likely to provide the greatest opportunity to be profitable relative to a strategy focused on selling directly into local markets. This result is due primarily to the inability of the local market to absorb all locally grown oysters. This result holds across a range of farm sizes, prices, growing conditions, transportation distances, number and size of competing farms, and number and demand of local buyers.

It Takes a Village to Raise and Sell an Oyster


Cecelia Cenac
Owner, C Cenac & Co LLC & French Hermit Oyster Co
13801 Arbor Cir
Ocean Springs, MS 39564
cecelia@cenacoysters.com


Micheal Porter created a framework in which industries are influenced by five forces: Rivalry, Threat of Substitutions, Buyer Power, Supplier Power, and Threat of New Entrants and Entry Barriers; with two additional factors: Government Involvement and Chance. Porter then offered businesses strategies of cost leadership, differentiation, and focus to create their own competitive advantage.


This presentation will briefly explain how we used Porter's strategic model to understand our local off-bottom oyster farm industry, and to create our own competitive advantage of "It Takes a Village to Raise and Sell an Oyster." By sharing this information, I hope to help other oyster farmers identify, develop, and fine tune their competitive strategies.

The Eastern Oyster provides essential ecosystem and economic services. However, oyster populations have declined significantly due to various natural and anthropogenic stresses. Aquaculture can potentially meet demands for commercial and restoration purposes, but hatcheries have yet to consistently meet demand due to water quality/chemistry problems. This project seeks to assess the effects of salinity, temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, and carbonate chemistry on the growth and survival of oyster larvae. 
 Water quality data, larval survival, and larval growth were monitored at three hatcheries along the Gulf Coast during April-October from 2022-2023. Water quality will be compared among the hatcheries, and associations with larval growth, percent hatch, survival will be assessed.
Data from Auburn University Shellfish Laboratory (AUSL), a flow-through hatchery, the University of Southern Mississippi (USM), a recirculating hatchery, and Bay Shellfish Company (BSC), a flow-through hatchery, show that, on average, BSC produced larger larvae than USM and AUSL across different ploidies. USM's percent survival in 2022 and 2023 was 34.9% and 28.4%, respectively; AUSL's was 26.8% and 43.6%, respectively; and BSC's was 36.1% in 2023. Individual water quality parameters influenced larval growth (MANOVA). Temperature and salinity interactions significantly impact growth across all sites, while temperature and pH interactions are significant at all sites except AUSL. The interaction between salinity and pH is notable only at BSC, and interactions between aragonite and both salinity and alkalinity are significant across all sites, suggesting variations in environmental factors have a substantial impact on larvae development. The significance of interactions suggests that combined environmental factors drive larval growth, rather than individual ones. Segmented regression models showed that growth was positively affected below breakpoints at a temperature of 23.3°C, a pH of 7.71, and a salinity of 23.19ppt. Further analysis will clarify these findings and their implications for improving larval production. 

Oysters have been crucial to communities for centuries. Historically, the eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) supported substantial harvests in the mid-Atlantic and Chesapeake Bay regions, peaking in the 19th century. However, by the mid-20th century, diseases and environmental degradation led to a sharp decline in populations. The Gulf of Mexico then became the leader in oyster harvests but has declined sharply over the last 10 years. Variable approaches have been investigated to overcome factors threatening oyster populations along the Gulf Coast. Current research in selective breeding is ongoing to identify heritability potentials for improved salinity tolerance during growout. Qualitative data were collected for hatchery traits of lines selected for improved low salinity tolerance. Treatment Tanks 1-9 were stocked with selected low salinity lines, and Tank 10 was the control. Results show the selected lines had variable performance in hatchery and nursery traits. The maximum average percent hatch of 36.60% was seen in Treatment Tank 1, and 1.09% was seen in Tank 10 (the control). The average percent hatch across all treatment tanks was 19.49%. The maximum average percent harvest was 4.05% in Treatment Tank 5, and the minimum was 0.01% in Tank 10, with an average percent harvest of 1.13% across all treatment tanks. These results indicate that the selected lines potentially performed better than the control in hatchery culture. Selective breeding for low salinity tolerance could be correlated with improved hatchery traits. Further research is needed to determine if larval hatchery traits are heritable and if a selection of growout traits can result in improvements in hatchery traits. Methods like selective breeding, coupled with caring for larvae in artificial saltwater, could promote the improved and consistent production of oyster seed to support the off-bottom industry and restoration efforts.