Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that can help answer the question.
Query: Which country produces the most farmed oysters?
The largest oyster-producing body of water in the United States is Chesapeake Bay, although these beds have decreased in number due to overfishing and pollution. Willapa Bay in Washington produces more oysters than any other estuary in the US.[9] Other large oyster farming areas in the US include the bays and estuaries along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico from Apalachicola, Florida in the east to Galveston, Texas in the west. Large beds of edible oysters are also found in Japan and Australia. In 2005, China accounted for 80% of the global oyster harvest.[10] Within Europe, France remained the industry leader.
Commonly farmed food oysters include the Eastern oyster "Crassostrea virginica", the Pacific oyster "Crassostrea gigas", Belon oyster "Ostrea edulis", the Sydney rock oyster "Saccostrea glomerata", and the Southern mud oyster "Ostrea angasi".
Carantec and the Bay of Morlaix have been home to oyster farming operations since 1892. Today Carantec is home to 15 oyster farms with over 700 hectares of oyster beds that produce over 6500 tons of oysters per year.
The local economy is heavily dependent on fishing even though there is some, farming, livestock, tourism and petroleum production. Fishing in the area includes sea bass, shark, crab and oysters some of which is exported to Japan. Oyster farming and collection is particularly important, providing up to 75% of many families’ annual income. There are eleven cooperatives farming 10.5 hectares in the Del Carmen-Pajonal-Machona lagoon area. These cooperatives recently received 300,000 pesos to help with the rehabilitation of these farm areas as well as help with the promotion of the oysters produced. The program is slated to help 950 families which are dedicated to this activity. However, fishing in the area has had problems. Phenomena such as red tide can be devastating to fishing. Fishing in the area suffers from pollution from petroleum drilling, lack of equipment and seasons in which fishing is not permitted. The Sociedades Cooperativas Acuícolas del Golfo states that fishing yields have dropped from 500 tons per year to 300 since drilling began off the Tabasco coast and the pollution also damages boats and other equipment.
The municipality has 57,755 hectares of land with 17% used for agriculture, 16% for livestock, 12% forest and 55% is residential/urban, wetlands or bodies of water. The municipality has an annual agricultural, industrial, arts and crafts fair in April. About thirty three percent of the working population is employed in agriculture and fishing. The most important crop in the municipality is coconut as the number one producer in the state, accounting for over sixty percent of cropland. Other important crops include cacao and bananas. Corn and beans are generally grown in small plots for family consumption. Livestock is not an important economic product although some cattle, pigs and domestic fowl is raised. There are still some tropical hardwood trees such as mahogany which is mostly used to make furniture. Fishing occurs in both ocean and fresh waters catching sea bass, shrimp and shellfish. It is a major producer and distributor of oysters and lately of edible jellyfish, most of which is farmed. However, fishing has been threatened by a number of factors. Oil spills and red tide have led to closure of fishing areas. In the 2000s, wild oyster yields dropped almost fifty percent in the lagoons of the Tabasco coast. It is traditional here for men to harvest oysters and the women to process them but this economic model is disappearing. Over exploitation of the mollusk is the main reason behind the drop in production. A study by the Universidad Juárez Autónoma de Tabasco strongly recommends the implementation of oyster farming to replace reliance on oysters growing wild, with state authorities also pushing for this change. However, local fishermen have been resistant to outside interference.
The farming of oysters and other shellfish is relatively benign or even restorative environmentally, and holds promise for relieving pressure on land-based protein sources. Restoration of oyster populations are encouraged for the ecosystem services they provide, including water quality maintenance, shoreline protection and sediment stabilization, nutrient cycling and sequestration, and habitat for other organisms. A native Olympia oyster restoration project is taking place in Liberty Bay, Washington, and numerous oyster restoration projects are underway in the Chesapeake Bay. In the U.S., Delaware is the only East Coast state without oyster aquaculture, but making aquaculture a state-controlled industry of leasing water by the acre for commercial harvesting of shellfish is being considered. Supporters of Delaware's legislation to allow aquaculture cite revenue, job creation, and nutrient cycling benefits. It is estimated that one acre can produce nearly 750,000 oysters, which could filter between 15 and 40 million gallons of water daily.
Totten Inlet splits into two smaller inlets, Oyster Bay and Little Skookum Inlet. Oyster Bay, located south of Burns Point, is an extensive mudflat. Oysters are grown in this area, and there are log booms. Totten Inlet is one of Washington's most productive areas for growing oysters. Oysters grow extremely fast in the inlet's algae-rich water. Taylor Shellfish, the United States' largest producer of farmed shellfish, got its start in Totten Inlet and is still headquartered today near its waters.
An abundance of shellfish farms on Baynes Sound now help to drive the economy of Union Bay. In 1923 Eikechi Kagetsu, a logging entrepreneur started work at Fanny Bay. Baynes Sound beaches reminded Kagetsu of areas in Japan which produced superior mollusks to our smaller native oysters. He brought in oyster seeds from Japan and started to cultivate Pacific oysters, an industry which has blossomed and now includes clams, mussels, scallops, and abalone.
McLellan's descendants still own and operate the oyster and clam farm located in Fanny Bay, Mac's Oysters Ltd. A fourth-generation family shellfish farm, Mac's Oysters is the only shellfish processor situated in Fanny Bay, though there is another company by that name, located in Union Bay approximately 11 km to the north. Mac's Oysters is a significant player in the Canadian farmed shellfish industry, processing approximately 34% of all of British Columbia's farmed oysters and clams from this area.
Although the BCLME holds significant aquaculture potential, the industry is underdeveloped. South Africa’s aquaculture industry is the most productive of the three countries’. It produces abalone, mussels, oysters, seaweed and prawns, with abalone the most important of these in terms of volume and employment. In Namibia, mussels, oysters, "Gracilaria" (red seaweed used by the pharmaceutical industry) and abalone are farmed, but the aquaculture industry is dominated by oyster production.
As the lagoon is open to the sea, it has fish such as the gilt-head bream ("dorade"), "Argyrosomus regius" (a croaker) and sea bass. The lagoon produces approximately 200 kg/ha/year of fish. However the shellfish industry is more economically important. Eighteen varieties of shellfish are taken from the lagoon - the most important being oysters. 750 producers farm 2,750 oyster tables and take some 13,000 tonnes annually. This provides for about 8.5% of France's consumption. Oysters from the Étang de Thau are marketed under the name "huîtres de Bouzigues" (Bouzigues Oysters) after the village of Bouzigues where oyster production started. They are a flat variety. Fixed with cement to ropes, the young oysters are immersed in the water until they reach a size suitable for consumption. Thau water is graded A and so shellfish can be caught and consumed within minutes. In addition to oysters, some 3,000 tonnes of mussels are produced every year.
The Toulkerrie Oyster Farm produces fresh Moreton Bay rock oysters; it takes around three years to grow the oysters large enough for the table. The farming process is environmentally sustainable and won the 2010 National Landcare Awards for Sustainable Farm Practices.
In New Zealand, the Pacific oyster was unintentionally introduced in the 1950s, most likely through ballast water and from the hulls of ships. Aquaculture farmers at the time noticed the Pacific oyster outcompeted the endemic species, the Sydney rock oyster ("Saccostrea glomerata"), which naturally occurs in intertidal areas in the North Island. Early experiments in rock oyster cultivation procedures attached spat to cement-covered sticks and laid them down in racks. The farmers noticed, however, the Pacific oyster outgrew the endemic species in most areas, and constantly was attaching to the rock oyster collection sticks. A few years later, Pacific oysters were the dominant species in the farms, as it grew three times faster than the rock oyster, produced a reliable and constant supply of spat, and had an already established market overseas. In 1977, the Pacific oyster was accidentally introduced to the Marlborough Sounds, and farming began there in the 1990s. Marlborough farmers developed a different method of cultivation in comparison to the North Island method of racks; they instead suspended their oysters on longlines.
Oyster depuration begins after the harvest of oysters from farmed locations. The oysters are transported and placed into tanks pumped with clean water for periods of 48 to 72 hours. The holding temperatures and salinity vary according to species. The seawater that the oysters were originally farmed in does not remain in the oyster, since the water used for depuration must be fully sterilized, plus the depuration facility would not necessarily be located near the farming location.[50] Depuration of oysters can remove moderate levels of contamination of most bacterial indicators and pathogens. Well-known contaminants include Vibrio parahaemolyticus, a temperature-sensitive bacterium found in seawater animals, and Escherichia coli, a bacterium found in coastal waters near highly populated cities having sewage systems discharging waste nearby, or in the presence of agricultural discharges.[51] Depuration expands beyond oysters into many shellfish and other related products, especially in seafood that is known to come from potentially polluted areas; depurated seafood is effectively a product cleansed from inside-out to make it safe for human consumption.
Oyster Shell Mortar
In the tidewater region of Maryland and Virginia, oyster shells were used to produce quicklime during the colonial period. Similar to other materials used to produce lime, the oyster shells are burned. This can be done in a lime rick instead of a kiln. Burning shells in a rick is something that Colonial Williamsburg and the recreation of Ferry Farm have had to develop from conjecture and in-the-field learning. The rick that they constructed consists of logs set up in a circle that burn slowly, converting oysters that are contained in the wood pile to an ashy powder. An explanatory video of how the rick was built for the Ferry Farm can be found here. The burnt shell can then be slaked and turned into lime putty.
"Pinctada maxima" produces South Sea pearls in colors ranging from white, silver, champagne, gold. "Pinctada margaritifera" produces South Sea pearls commonly referred to as Tahitian pearls or black pearls which in fact come in color hues including gray, platinum, charcoal, aubergine, peacock. Currently south sea pearls are cultured primarily in Australia, Indonesia, Tahiti and now, the Philippines. Because these pearl oysters are so large, a much larger nucleus than usual can be used in culturing. Commercial pearl farming in Australia is mostly centred around the coastal waters of Broome, 17.9614 degrees South and 122.2359 degrees East, located in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Best known and valued for their white/silver with pink hues from the silver-lipped pearl oyster, Australian South Sea Pearls can grow beyond 18mm - 20mm in diameter, with a typical size of 10mm - 13mm when harvested following a two-year gestation. South Sea pearls farmed in the Philippines, typically produce golden pearls from the gold-lipped pearl oyster, which are currently experiencing a surge in popularity, resulting in increased market-demand, particularly in China. The Tahitian or black pearl comes from the black-lipped pearl oyster, produced from the waters surrounding Tahiti and the French Polynesian archipelago.
Oysters are considered to be the most important molluscan shellfish in the aquaculture industry of South Korea, which, in 2005, produced 251,706 tonnes of oysters. Approximately 90% of the Korean oysters come from farms located in small bays and off islands along the southern coast. Oyster farming is highly popular, as it produces high profits. For example, in 2003, one oyster farming family worked on 126 oyster long-lines producing a net profit of 33,000 US Dollars.
A pearl is created in the mantle of a mollusk when an irritant particle is surrounded by layers of nacre. Although most bivalves can create pearls, oysters in the family Pteriidae and freshwater mussels in the families Unionidae and Margaritiferidae are the main source of commercially available pearls because the calcareous concretions produced by most other species have no lustre. Finding pearls inside oysters is a very chancy business as hundreds of shells may need to be pried open before a single pearl can be found. Most pearls are now obtained from cultured shells where an irritant substance has been purposefully introduced to induce the formation of a pearl. A "mabe" (irregular) pearl can be grown by the insertion of an implant, usually made of plastic, under a flap of the mantle and next to the mother-of-pearl interior of the shell. A more difficult procedure is the grafting of a piece of oyster mantle into the gonad of an adult specimen together with the insertion of a shell bead nucleus. This produces a superior, spherical pearl. The animal can be opened to extract the pearl after about two years and reseeded so that it produces another pearl. Pearl oyster farming and pearl culture is an important industry in Japan and many other countries bordering the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
Middens testify to the prehistoric importance of oysters as food, with some middens in New South Wales, Australia dated at ten thousand years.[30] They have been cultivated in Japan from at least 2000 BC.[30] In the United Kingdom, the town of Whitstable is noted for oyster farming from beds on the Kentish Flats that have been used since Roman times. The borough of Colchester holds an annual Oyster Feast each October, at which "Colchester Natives" (the native oyster, Ostrea edulis) are consumed. The United Kingdom hosts several other annual oyster festivals; for example, Woburn Oyster Festival is held in September. Many breweries produce oyster stout, a beer intended to be drunk with oysters that sometimes includes oysters in the brewing process.
In the third method the spat or seed are placed in a cultch within an artificial maturation tank. The maturation tank may be fed with water that has been especially prepared for the purpose of accelerating the growth rate of the oysters. In particular the temperature and salinity of the water may be altered somewhat from nearby ocean water. The carbonate minerals calcite and aragonite in the water may help oysters develop their shells faster and may also be included in the water processing prior to introduction to the tanks. This latter cultivation technique may be the least susceptible to predators and poaching, but is the most expensive to build and to operate. The Pacific oyster "M. gigas" is the species most commonly used with this type of farming.
The Pacific wing-oyster naturally produces gray, pink, golden, green and purplish pearls. With the dwindling of the number of wild oysters, efforts to farm this species on a commercial scale to produce pearls have been made. The production of cultured pearls requires the grafting of a pearl nucleus, together with a portion of mantle tissue from a donor into a recipient oyster. The culture of round pearls in Pacific wing-oysters is technically hard; the oysters are small and the shell thin, the shape of the shell makes the seeding operation difficult and the pearl sack is wide at the base which means that the graft may shift around. With experience, technicians gain expertise in seeding and yields can be high, with pearls reaching a maximum of in diameter.
Between 1868 and 1870, Möbius was commissioned by the Ministry of Agricultural Affairs in Prussia to conduct research on the Bay of Kiel oyster beds. At the time, the oysters were being gathered from the natural beds and sold at expensive prices to the wealthy elite. Once the railroad was constructed and more opportunities for exportation arose, the demand for the oysters grew exponentially. In turn, the Ministry tasked Möbius with exploring the potential for further exploitation of the beds. Möbius's research resulted in two landmark publications: "Über Austern- und Miesmuschelzucht und Hebung derselben an der norddeutschen Küste" (1870, in English: "On oyster and blue mussel farming in coastal areas of Northern Germany"), and "Die Auster und die Austernwirtschaft" (in English: "Oyster and oyster farming"), in which he concluded that oyster farming was not a realistic option for Northern Germany. More importantly, he was first to describe in detail the interactions between the different organisms in the ecosystem of the oyster bank, coining the term "biocenose". This remains a key term in synecology (community ecology).
Oyster farming is an aquaculture (or mariculture) practice in which oysters are raised for human consumption. Oyster farming was practiced by the ancient Romans as early as the 1st century BC on the Italian peninsula and later in Britain for export to Rome. The French oyster industry has relied on aquacultured oysters since the late 18th century.
The principal industry of the Long Beach Peninsula has become tourism, though fishing, crabbing, oyster farming, and cranberry farming are also important components of the local economy. The Long Beach Peninsula is located on the west side of the Willapa Bay, considered the number one producer of farmed oysters in the United States and among the top five producers worldwide.
The most valuable of baroque pearls are the South Sea and Tahitian pearls. These pearls are produced by "Pinctada margaritifera" (black-lipped oysters) and "Pinctada maxima" (gold-lipped and white-lipped oysters). Although these are a variety of cultured saltwater pearls, the amount of time that the pearls are cultured dramatically increases the depth of the nacre, and the likelihood of producing a baroque pearl. Most Tahitian pearl farm harvests, for example, produce more than 40 percent baroque and semi-baroque pearls. Western Australia is currently the world's largest cultivator of "Pinctada maxima" gold-lipped oysters. Tahiti is the number one cultivator of "Pinctada maxima" black-lipped oysters.