Scallop Farming
Scallops are a popular choice in many seafood dishes; consequently, scallop farming is an important industry for many economies. Scallop farming is a source of many jobs ranging from equipment manufacturers to transporters. Luckily, such an economically important industry does not damage the environment like other fish farming, and because of its methods of farming, any self-employed fisherman can farm scallops if he has the drive and the knowledge.
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Identification
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Scallops belong to the Pectinoidea family in the Mollusca phylum (snails, oysters and mussels also belong to this phylum). Scallops are bivalves, which mean that they have two rounded shells that hinge together at one end. There are more than 360 species of scallops, and they live in different depths of water ranging from 2 to 200 meters.
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Geography
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Currently, the largest producers of commercial scallops are Japan (38% of scallop production) and the USA (32.2% of scallop production). Japan's most important scallop species is the Giant Ezo Scallop. The United States' most important scallops are the Calico Scallop and the Purple Hinge Rock Scallop. The King Scallop and the Queen Scallop are Europe's most profitable scallops.
Features
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Scallop farming is indeed very much like farming on land; it requires a lot of patience and time spent gathering. Because scallops generally prefer depths of less than 200 meters, additional expensive equipment, like a farm boat, is not necessary. Consequently, many inshore fisherman add scallop farming to their repertoire.
Process
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Farmers need a large amount of scallop spat ("baby" scallops) for scallop farming. Farmers collect scallop spat from either the wild or an onshore hatchery. Ideally, hatchery spat should undergo a "nursery" period in protected water in preparation for the spat being introduced to the ocean. The most popular way to "grow" adult scallops in the ocean is using lantern nets (tiered nets). Farmers suspend lantern nets between two buoys. They then attach scallops to the nets and lower them in the water. Scallops take around 18 months to go through their growth cycle.
Misconceptions
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Environmentalists have recently maligned aquaculture for its destructive habits (salmon fishing receives the most attacks), but scallop farming does not hurt the environment in this way. Farmers do not need any chemicals to sustain the scallops' lives, and farmers gather them without using large and destructive equipment.
References
- Photo Credit "Red Buoy" is Copyrighted by Flickr user: boliston (Adrian Boliston) under the Creative Commons Attribution license.
