These projections, however, do not take into account a disease that was discovered in farmed quahogs in Massachusetts in 1995, and has now been reported in cultured clams in Virginia and both wild and cultured clams in New Jersey and Massachusetts. Because the discovery of the disease was so recent, much remains unknown about the organism itself, the mechanism of infection, the clam's response to the disease organism, and the time frame for progression of the disease in relationship to certain physical or physiological conditions.
Many factors influence the economic success of a business.
Offshore or open-ocean aquaculture is no exception. While many technical, biological, and regulatory constraints to marine aquaculture are now being resolved through research and demonstration projects, few offshore marine aquaculture operations have been commercialized to date. This is likely due, in part, to an incomplete understanding among both entrepreneurs and financial backers of the economics of offshore aquaculture operations. This project will apply financial business planning and risk assessment techniques to develop a model of offshore aquaculture economics and use the model to investigate the economic viability of prospective offshore aquaculture operations in New England. The model will use a bioeconomic approach to incorporate emerging information on construction requirements and biological growth processes in marine settings, the effects of engineering and biological uncertainties, the costs of regulatory compliance, and variability in supply and demand in the relevant product markets.