follow this link.

TOUR

HISTORY

MODEL FISHERY

AQUACULTURE

Great Eastern Mussel Farms provides stewardship of resources by using the all natural "seeding" process. The product has no additives, is all natural, and there is virtually no "bi-catch" of other fish or shellfish.

It wasn't until the '70s that anyone in America thought mussels were worthy enough to cultivate.

Bottom cultivation enhances the natural growing conditions of wild mussels, allowing them to be thinned or to be seeded at densities that allow less competition. The result is a faster-growing, thinner-shelled mussel with few pearls and sweet, tender meat. Cultivation takes a good thing and makes it better.

	Evan Young lifts one of the 30-foot-long lines suspended off his mussel raft.

Each spring the mussels along the coast of Maine spawn. By July 4th, the seed "sets." The following April, GEM locates these sub-tidal ocean beds and spends the summer transplanting the seed to its aquaculture leaseholds. After 18-24 months, the seed grows to a market size of 2 1/4 to 3 inches.

Harvesting: only enough mussels to meet current demand, the opposite of what other fisheries do, pulling in as large a "catch" as possible and then finding markets for it.

When they arrive at the plant, the mussels are placed in 20,000 gallon re-watering tanks for 24 hours to purge out any sand or grit. They are tested by plant marine biologist, graded for size and inspected for breakage; they are then boxed and shipped.

Production has grown to over 6 million pounds, making the company the largest harvester in the United States, and the only one using both bottom culture and raft culture methods.

GEM's yield is about 15,000 pounds per acre; even the richest grasslands in the US can produce only about 150 - 200 pounds of beef per acre. Three hundred times the space is needed for grazing cattle to produce the same amount of beef per acre.

Aquaculture produced more than 17% of the worlds' entire fish supply in 1991. Industry analysts predict that in 25 years, the industry will be providing 50%.