It takes a poet, and perhaps also a Frenchman, to properly describe the experience of eating a raw oyster. Leon-Paul Fargue (1876-1947) wrote that it was like “kissing the sea on the mouth.”
“Oyster farmers lost business during the pandemic, because a lot of their sales were to restaurants, and the restaurants were closed,” Vigue said. “So we worked on ways to connect the consumer to the farmers, and perhaps provide a sort of off-the-path, insider experience.”
“I’m somebody who’s benefiting from the trail,” said Sadia Crosby, who owns and operates OystHERS Sea Farm, a one-woman operation in Georgetown, on the Damariscotta River watershed. Like Vigue, she grew up in a fishing family. “My father was a
2 AQUACULTURE • Bangor Daily News Special Advertising Section • August 19, 2022
You can French-kiss the ocean at any number of stops along the Maine Oyster Trail, an interactive guide to Maine’s burgeoning homegrown oyster industry, designed as a means of connecting consumers to the places where oysters are grown and the people who grow them.
The idea of a Maine Oyster Trail “had been around as a concept for a number of years,” Vigue said. “It’s loosely based on the Maine Beer Trail, which helped introduce beer drinkers to small, local breweries. It’s meant to drive tourism through the local oyster business.”Theoriginal Maine Oyster Trail was launched in 2017 as a collaborative project between the Maine Aquaculture Association and Maine Sea Grant. Its purpose was to provide educational experiences for consumers about oyster farming in Maine. In 2021, after the Covid pandemic, it was revamped to include other oyster-connected businesses and interactive virtual features.
DiscoverOystertheFollowMaineTrailMaineoystersthroughlocalraw
bars, farms, kayak tours and more
BY HANK GARFIELD Image courtesy of the Maine Oyster Trail
The trail lists 87 businesses, including farms, restaurants, raw bars, mobile “shuck trucks” and even some businesses only tangentially connected to the oyster business, such as guided kayak tour operations. Participants can sign up for an “electronic passport,” which they then use at businesses to accumulate points that they can apply toward Maine Oyster Trail swag, such as baseball caps and tote bags.Since 2021 the trail has had over 3,000 check-ins and 900 farm visits, and boasts 2,500 registered users.
The trail is the brainchild of Afton Vigue, an outreach and development specialist at the Maine Aquaculture Association, a non-profit trade association that represents Maine’s nearly 200 farms and 700 farmers of sea vegetables, shellfish and finfish at the state, national and local levels. Raised in a lobstering family in the Rockland area, Vigue has always been interested in sustainable foods in Maine.
“Damariscotta oysters are briny, with a big, bold flavor. Oysters from another area might have a sweeter, milder taste.”
The Damariscotta River watershed is the Napa Valley of Maine’s oyster business. Maine’s central coast is a land of long peninsulas separated by extensive inlets and estuaries where freshwater and seawater mix. They’re protected from ocean storms and full of the nutrients on which shellfish like to fatten themselves. Mussel and oyster farming began here in the 1960s and 1970s, before anyone else in the state was doing it. Even today, 80 percent of Maine’s farmed oysters come from the Damariscotta watershed.Butfarms are proliferating up and down the coast, from Kittery to the Cranberry Isles. Currently, the Maine Oyster Trail ends in Gouldsboro, but as with the oyster business itself, there seems to be plenty of room for growth. Also like oysters, it takes time. Not all oyster farms are set up to interface with the general public, Vigue said, but the trail enables participants to contact the farms and find out where to buy their oysters. Bars and restaurants listed on the trail are required to let their customers know which farm the oysters on their plates came from. Tucked between a Japanese restaurant and an insurance company on Rockland’s busy Main Street, North Beacon Oyster is easy to walk right by — except between five and nine on a warm summer evening. Then one is likely to see an overflow crowd spilling out onto the sidewalk. A member business of the Maine Oyster Trail, North Beacon serves up a variety of fresh oysters from a rotating list of farms prominently posted on the wall. Plates come with clothespins identifying each oyster’s place of origin: Pemaquid, South Thomaston, Wheeler’s Bay, Scarborough.Andtheydo taste different from one another. A light Spanish white wine makes a fine chaser and doesn’t interfere with the oysters’ subtle flavor. Oyster connoisseurs even talk like wine snobs, about nose, body, texture, finish. But the bottom line is that oysters are good, and good for you, and good for the Maine economy and the future of sustainable food worldwide.
Vigue hopes that the Maine Oyster Trail will not only bring curious tourists to oyster-oriented businesses, but also help to boost local economies and preserve working waterfronts. “It’s a great way to learn about the business from top to bottom,” she said, “and to enjoy our world-class Maine-grown oysters in the process.”
lobsterman, but he didn’t want me to go into commercial fishing,” she said. “So oyster farming became a backwards way of getting on the water anyway.”Herfarm is part of the Georgetown Island Oyster Cooperative. “I can usually recruit a friend or two to help when I need to,” she said. Crosby and five other oyster farmers collectively lease 14 acres in a cove in which they grow oysters from seed stock in horizontal pens. The baby oysters come from one of two suppliers, also in Maine, and they are about two millimeters in diameter.“They look like cooked quinoa — they’re really cute,” she said. “The ones I get are called triploids, which means they have an extra set of chromosomes, which means they’re sterile. And that means that they’re not using any of their energy for reproduction — it’s all going to growth.”
It takes about three years for a seedling oyster to grow to market size, Crosby said. Though the Maine Oyster Trail may have been inspired by beer, oysters are more like wine, and oyster-growing environments are akin to wine regions — the taste of the product depending upon the specific micro-climate. “They all taste different depending on where they’re grown,” Crosby said.
AQUACULTURE • Bangor Daily News Special Advertising Section • August 19, 2022 3
Nichole Sawyer is the Dean of Workforce Development at Washington County Community College in Calais. In 2018 she began working with local industry representatives to design a course of study focused on the needs of the workplace.“Thedevelopmental work accomplished with this program was particularly fruitful in building numerous partnerships within the commercial fisheries industry to design a program that would be feasible for individuals, already in the industry, to attend,” she said. “In addition, these partnerships within the aquaculture industry were key in informing us about Maine’s growing aquaculture sector and particularly the current and upcoming workforce needs.”
Students pursuing the associate degree can choose a concentration in either Fisheries and Aquaculture or Vessel Operation and Maintenance.
Since the 1970s, aquaculture in Maine has traditionally been done by small, mostly family-owned operations, usually growing shellfish. But as the demand for fresh seafood has grown, so has the demand for fish farms of the kind Maine is now seeing being developed or proposed by large, international companies in Belfast, Jonesport and other coastal communities. These larger operations have brought some controversy, but also many employment opportunities. And educational institutions have noticed.
The school offers a one-year certificate program (31 credits) in Coastal Fisheries and Marine Technology, and a two-year Associate of Applied Science degree (63 credits).
Maine’s clean coastal waters and nutrient-rich estuaries provide ample opportunity for this growing industry in a state already famous for its seafood. From kelp beds to shellfish farms to indoor and outdoor salmon pens, aquaculture in Maine suddenly seems to be everywhere.
“Curriculum was developed in a hybrid design, allowing for some content to be delivered online, yet also providing numerous hands-on lab experiences on campus and on the water,” Sawyer said. “Delivery of the courses was also planned during the less busy times within the industry.
“We launched some of the courses through the workforce division ahead of the formal program in 2020 and launched the full program in Fall 2021. The pandemic had a major effect on the programming resulting in low enrollment and instructor availability.
While the world’s wild catch has not increased significantly in the last 30 years, aquaculture production has more than quadrupled, and shows no signs of slowing down.
The fishery was also experiencing major market
Getting Schooled in Aquaculture
4 AQUACULTURE • Bangor Daily News Special Advertising Section • August 19, 2022
BY HANK GARFIELD
Maine colleges preparing students to be leaders in the aquaculture industry
The world now farms more seafood than it hauls wild from the ocean. The crossover point happened in 2013.
“Aquaculture involves using the ocean as a resource, and we need to do it responsibly,” Ellis said. “We need to understand what we’re doing to the local environment.”
Ellis expects the new research facility to be a strong recruiting tool. “The interest of young people in the ocean is growing,” he said. “Whatever gets them excited about the ocean in the first place is not necessarily what they end up doing. In high school, they may not even know what aquaculture is. Then they get here and find out it’s pretty interesting.”
“We now have about 350 Marine Science majors at any one time,” says William “Weedge” Ellis, Associate Director of the School of Marine Sciences and a professor of oceanography at UMaine for the past 18 years. “At one time we had an aquaculture major, but despite the projected growth in the industry we didn’t get overwhelming enrollment. I would say now that about 10 percent of our majors are concentrating in aquaculture.”Interimdirector Heather Hamlin sees great potential for the future of aquaculture and aquaculture education in Maine. “We are on the cusp of becoming not just a national leader, but a world leader, in environmentally sustainable aquaculture,” she said. “And we are seeing more undergraduate interest, through the Aquaculture Research Institute.”
Many jobs in aquaculture don’t require a bachelor’s degree. There is need for boat mechanics, electricians and other skilled specialists. But there is also a need, as Ellis put it, “to understand how the oceans work.” Recent controversies over proposed large-scale finfish growing facilities point to the need for continued research.
The mission of UMaine’s Aquaculture Research Institute is “to serve Maine as an objective authority on aquaculture research with the goal of advancing a sustainable aquaculture future in Maine and beyond.” The ARI is affiliated with aquacultural facilities throughout the state, including the Darling Marine Center in Walpole, founded in 1965 in the early days of mussel farming on the Damariscotta River, and the Center for Cooperative Aquaculture Research (CCAR) in Franklin, founded in 1999 on Taunton Bay to study the raising of fish in captivity in anticipation of industrial-scale fish farming.
AQUACULTURE • Bangor Daily News Special Advertising Section • August 19, 2022 5 fluctuations, and we lost the ability to provide the hands-on learning, which is an essential part of this program. Currently, we are in the process of hiring a full-time faculty member for our Coastal Fisheries and Marine Technology program to really champion the program, deliver the curriculum and build industry partnerships.”TheUniversity of Maine has long been recognized as a national leader in aquaculture research. Students earning four-year degrees in Marine Science can take a concentration in aquaculture.
Tudor is particularly excited about the opportunities the new building will offer for interaction with the public. The building will house labs and tanks and classrooms, but plans also call for an interpretive center where visitors can experience hands-on immersion in the science of aquaculture. “I call it K to gray learning,” she said. “Six to 60, and beyond. A lot of people eat seafood. Not a lot of people know what goes into raising it. I see it as a great opportunity for consumer education.”
“We need to feed the world,” Hamlin said. “Yes, there are environmental impacts. But compared to any other way of raising protein on the planet, aquaculture is far less impactful. It’s not perfect, but aquaculture has to fight more misinformation than any other food source.”
But the most exciting thing happening at the Marine Sciences Department these days is the planning for and imminent construction of the new Sustainable Aquaculture Workforce and Innovation Center (SAWIC) on the Orono campus. The old building, which Ellis described as a refurbished chicken coop, was scheduled for demolition and will be torn down by the end of the summer. According to Research Outreach Coordinator Scarlett Tudor, a new state-of-the-art facility will rise in its place. No date has been set for the start of construction, but 80 percent of the funding has been secured, Tudor said, and “it’s not a question of if, but when.”
At the Machisasport facility, Bill and the team prepare fresh salmon to customer specs. This could include “value-added” work including descaling or cutting the fish into fillets – ready for the grill or the oven.
Current openings at the Machiasport facility include Processing Technicians, a Maintenance Supervisor and Maintenance Technicians.
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“It’s a good place to work. I like my job,” he said.
Innovation and technology have continued to improve all aspects of farming. From what salmon eat and how they’re fed to the equipment used to build pens and nets – everything about raising salmon has improved and the jobs have become less physically demanding.
Bill calls it a low-stress job with good pay and benefits – including medical plans that start at no cost for employee-only coverage and affordable rates for familyAnd,coverage.importantly, he feels like he’s part of a team of good“It’speople.something I enjoy doing,” he said. “They’ve strived to try to make the employees as happy as they can be while at the same time getting the job done.”
Atlantic salmon aquaculture developed to fill a void as wild stocks declined. Farming became the only way to enjoy this prized fish and, always guided by science, the industry was developed and has evolved. All Maine farms are monitored by regulatory and resource management agencies and certifications are in place to protect the environment around a farm. Veterinarians care for salmon daily.
“There have been a lot of advancements, a lot of changes… My job is a whole lot easier than it used to be. They’ve made definite improvements.”
Salmon Success:
COURTESY OF COOKE AQUACULTURE
If you’re looking to join the Cooke team in Maine, you can view current openings, set up a profile and apply online at mycookecareer.com – an ocean of opportunity awaits.
The company is also hiring technicians at freshwater hatcheries in Oquossoc and Bingham, marine farm site workers in Black Island, Black Island South and Swan’s Island and site technicians and deckhands for the Machias Bay and Eastport Bay areas.
Atlantic salmon farming was once a novel industry. It is now a critical part of our food supply. Globally, salmon farmers are producing 17.5 billion meals per year, according to the International Salmon Farmers Association.Atlantic salmon is extremely popular among professional chefs and home cooks for its versatility, ease of preparation and its taste and nutritional benefits. And farmed Atlantic salmon is available year-round.
Cooke Aquaculture USA raises Atlantic salmon from egg-to-plate in Maine. At marine farm sites, the most modern equipment is used to grow healthy fish while maintaining a healthy marine environment.
Bill Longstaff has been working in salmon processing at Cooke Aquaculture USA in Machiasport since 2008. He likes the lowstress work and said the pay and benefits are good.
Even at his post at Cooke Aquaculture USA in Machiasport, Bill has seen the changes.
A once novel industry is now a mature, reliable contributor to Maine’s working waterfronts
With consistent and predictable production and a high consumer demand for Maine-grown product, Atlantic salmon farming has become a steady and solid industry providing full-time, year-round employment in our working waterfront communities. Back in 2009, when True North Maine, a division of Cooke Aquaculture, started processing Atlantic salmon at its plant in Machiasport, it was headline news. Years earlier, salmon was big business in Maine. And then, quite suddenly, it wasn’t. After peaking in 2000, the Maine industry slowed down then shut down as companies – large multinationals – backed out. In 2004, a small but growing family company from New Brunswick, acquired Atlantic Salmon of Maine. Where larger companies were finished with Maine salmon, the Cooke family, founders of Cooke Aquaculture, saw the promise of a bright, productive future. A processing facility in Machiasport, now known as Cooke Aquaculture USA, was a centrepiece of Cooke’s plans. The company had already spent 20 years building a fully integrated salmon business in New Brunswick and by acquiring freshwater hatcheries and marine farm leases, they were confident the same thing could work in Maine. It’s an “egg-to-plate” model of Atlantic salmon aquaculture that Cooke has used to grow from a small family company into a global seafood leader. One of the first employees at the reinvigorated Cooke Aquaculture USA facility was Bill Longstaff, who joined the company in 2008. The Waterville-born man had moved to Machias and did a variety of jobs before joining Cooke. And as he gets close to his 15th anniversary with Cooke, he said he’d encourage anyone looking for rewarding work to consider joining the team.
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In 2013, Midcoast Maine scallop fishermen initiated discussions about implementing a small-scale closed area on Lower Muscle Ridge south of Spruce Head in western Penobscot Bay. In response to these discussions, fishermen and researchers, including Hurricane’s lead scientist Phoebe Jekielek, collaborated in a study to determine and monitor scallop larval supply and adult density and abundance in a small area closed to scallop fishing over the following 5 years. At the same time, scallop aquaculture was on the rise and, in support of the continuing conversation around aquaculture best practices, the spat (baby scallops) that were caught during this study were grown out on three aquaculture lines on Hurricane Island. In 2019, Hurricane Island established a 3.2 acre aquaculture research site which is now home to over 8,000 scallops and the majority of Hurricane Island’s research work. Currently, Hurricane Island’s research initiatives continue in collaboration with fishermen and farmers across the bay and seek to answer questions about how farmed scallops might be beneficial to the health of the ecosystem and increase abundance in the wild scallop fishery. With scallops identified as one of the most promising avenues for growth in Maine’s shellfish aquaculture, Hurricane Island’s research is positioned to serve an industry with the potential to double in volume and value by 2030.
Hurricane Island plays a unique role in this growing industry. The Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries, with Hurricane Island and Bates College as research partners, are working together to support a collaborative pilot investigation monitoring patterns of larval abundance and distribution. This project expands the geographic reach of Hurricane Island’s work beyond Penobscot Bay to include the entire Maine coast. The initiative has the goals of evaluating the variability in scallop larval supply; developing low cost monitoring and data management systems; strengthening relationships between fishermen and farmers as they team up to understand a resource upon which they both depend; and providing authentic education experiences for high school and undergraduate students. Together, researchers from Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries, Bates College, and Hurricane Island will organize with local scallop farmers, fishermen, and managers to develop a strategy to collect and analyze spat across Maine’s coast. Understanding what influences the geographic distribution of spat is essential to the success of scallop industries, and the project engages the expertise of fishermen, farmers, oceanographers, marine ecologists, and resource managers in the experimental design, data collection, and data interpretation processes. Additionally, the collection and analysis of the spat will be performed in collaboration with students from area high schools and undergraduate programs, offering local schools and science classes opportunities to engage in hands-on field research with professional scientists and industry members. This initiative will be bolstered by the Hurricane Island Field Research Station which will provide a home for research and researchers working to understand and steward a sustainable fishery in Penobscot Bay.
As the prices of lobster and fuel continue to rock the fishing community of Penobscot Bay, Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership is getting serious about scallops. Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership (Hurricane Island) is an organization dedicated to integrating science education and scientific research to answer and address community-driven questions about our marine ecosystems. This local focus in our scientific research initiatives has led to the construction of The Hurricane Island Field Research Station––Penobscot Bay’s first and only off-shore marine research station––but it began with conversations about the commercial fishery.
8 AQUACULTURE • Bangor Daily News Special Advertising Section • August 19, 2022 Spat! What’s That?
COURTESY OF HURRICANE ISLAND CENTER FOR SCIENCE AND LEADERSHIP
A community-driven approach to aquaculture research and education at Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership
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Maine is Working
While demand for high quality, sustainable seafood continues to increase in the U.S. and globally, a recent NOAA report states that aquaculture only accounts for 7 percent of total domestic seafood production in the U.S. Despite aquaculture’s small role in U.S. seafood production, more than 80 percent of Americans support expanding domestic aquaculture, according to a recent poll from Stronger America Through Seafood. Other coastal states, including Alaska, Washington and California, are working to develop marine aquaculture, and they are looking to Maine’s regulatory system as an example of one that is fostering responsible, sustainable growth — and doing it right.
Maine’s cold, clean waters are ideal for harvesting some of the best seafood in the world. The value of Maine’s commercially harvested seafood, including farmed shellfish, finfish and sea vegetables, set a record in 2021 of nearly $900 million, according to the Maine Department of Marine Resources. Maine oysters, most of which are farmed, were the fourth most valuable seafood product at $10 million.
Maine has not only pioneered best practices and strict standards now used throughout the U.S. and around the world, but is also leading the nation in dynamic innovation including recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS), aquaponics, integrated multi-trophic aquaculture, and restoration of endangered wild Atlantic Salmon. Maine is also a leader in aquatourism, a new attraction where visitors can experience aquaculture farm tours and tastings.
The Maine Oyster Trail has attracted visitors from at least 15 different states and driven thousands of oyster sales and farm tours in the past year. None of these amazing benefits can be achieved without responsible growth, the kind that allows farmers to employ community members, pay them living wages and offer benefits, and eventually pass their businesses down to the next generation. Maine is the case study for responsible growth that welcomes diversity, innovation, and resiliency, all while honoring our maritime heritage, communities, and culture.
Aquaculture
Aquaculture in Maine is working. Not only in the future, not just through the pandemic, but right now. At a time when development pressure on the coast is at an all-time high and working waterfronts are severely threatened, Maine communities are welcoming aquaculture as an important tool to help them diversify and become more resilient.
On July 20, the town of Jonesport voted overwhelmingly to reject a proposed moratorium on aquaculture development, showing strong support for land-based aquaculture company Kingfish Maine, which plans to raise Yellowtail Kingfish and bring at least 100 jobs to the community.
“We are thrilled to see the confidence of this town in their own town government and in the potential of this project in Jonesport,” said Megan Sorby, Kingfish Maine’s operations manager. Jonesport, Lubec, Eastport, Pembroke, and other towns that have rejected the proposed moratorium on aquaculture development are standing up and saying “no” to paid campaigners seeking to hinder economic opportunities for Maine’s working waterfront families.
COURTESY OF MAINE AQUACULTURE ASSOCIATION
Maine’s working waterfronts are diversifying, forging innovative businesses and dynamic supply chains. The future resiliency of our working waterfronts is dependent on the availability of a trained, tech-savvy workforce. There is an urgent need to train the next generation of seafood sector workforce including areas such as wild capture fisheries, aquaculture, supply chain, infrastructure, processing, entrepreneurship, and more. Maine’s community colleges and the Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center (MAIC) are linking arms with partners to meet this need. Washington County Community College (WCCC), founded in 1969, has worked with local seafood industries in Maine to identify workforce development needs. The college currently offers 29 programs of study at the associate degree, diploma and certificate levels. Certificates are designed to be “stackable.” This allows students the option of becoming multi-skilled technicians upon returning for a subsequent year to earn
Training the next generation of Maine’s aquaculture workforce
10 AQUACULTURE • Bangor Daily News Special Advertising Section • August 19, 2022
COURTESY OF MAINE AQUACULTURE INNOVATION CENTER
This energy has continued to garner State and Federal level support with a Congressionally Directed Spending Award to MAIC, Maine Community College System (MCCS), WCCC and SMCC, to support community college seafood training programs. The three-year project aims to forge a new system-wide approach to addressing seafood workforce needs so that together SMCC and WCCC can prepare future generations of Mainers for entry-level positions in the seafood sector, paving pathways for lifelong in-demand, high-wage careers. The collaboration will bring together the MAIC, MCCS, WCCC, SMCC along with the SEA Maine, the Downeast Institute, Maine Aquaculture Association, Maine Lobster Dealers Association, Maine 4-H, Sunrise County Economic Council, Maine Sea Grant, and the Gulf of Maine Research Institute to develop world class training and education programs for the next generation of Maine’s workforce in the seafood sector.
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To support the Downeast seafood sector, two new programs are now available at WCCC: the Coastal Fisheries and Marine Technology program which launched in 2020, and the Aquaculture Technology program that will begin its pilot run this year.
A complementary USDA AFRI funded project is also underway in southern Maine with the Gulf of Maine Research Institute and Southern Maine Community College (SMCC) partnering to develop and deliver both aquaculture workforce training courses, and a shellfish and marine algae farming pre-apprenticeship program.
another technical certificate which, in turn, maximizes their employment opportunities.
With support from the USDA AFRI program, WCCC has been partnering with the MAIC and Sunrise County Economic Council to make the Aquaculture Technology program a reality. This kicks off in August, with a five-day residential course that aims to raise awareness of the diversity of careers within aquaculture, and pathways towards these careers. Students will visit an exciting range of aquaculture operations and become familiar with the varying roles and responsibilities of careers within this growing industry. This will include visiting shellfish, marine algae and fin fish hatcheries, land-based recirculating aquaculture operations, marine-based fin fish and shellfish operations, processing facilities, and research facilities. Students will meet with people in a broad range of careers including farming/production, biotechnology, processing, distribution and transport, gear/equipment manufacturing, veterinarians and aquatic animal health, entrepreneurship, sales, advocacy, education, policy and regulation, research, engineering, food science, and more. To find out more about this course and others we are developing at WCCC, please take a look at this website: www.wccc.me.edu/professional-development/ aquaculture.
12 AQUACULTURE • Bangor Daily News Special Advertising Section • August 19, 2022 We kno w aq uaculture Leading the way in R&D and workforce development to suppor t sustainable aq uaculture in Maine. Aq uaculture Research Institute Maine Sea Grant Center for Cooperative Aq uaculture Research Darling Marine Center Downeast Institute UMaine Cooperative Extension Aq uatic Animal Health Lab umaine.edu/aq uaculture/facilities/
