THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, December 20, 1995 TAG: 9512200519
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A13 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: SPECIAL REPORT
DIVIDING THE WATERS
SOURCE: BY CHRISTOPHER DINSMORE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
Despite its ramshackle appearance, Cherrystone Aquafarm on Virginia's Eastern Shore harbors the future.
It will produce about 25 million clams this year, making it the nation's leading producer of the tasty hardshells.
The clam farming business is one of the few bright spots in Virginia's seafood industry. The famous Bay oyster is nearly depleted, and blue crabs are on the decline, as are many finfish species.
In 1994, clam farms in the state produced about 80 million clams, at 16 cents each, worth nearly $13 million, the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services estimates.
The Eastern Shore is home to most of that effort. There are several large operations and numerous part-time, mom-and-pop operations that produce 50,000 to 100,000 clams a year.
Cherrystone Aquafarm is the state's largest. It is a minimalist operation, built on the cheap to produce as many clams as possible.
``If it doesn't have anything to do with clams, it's not here,'' said Michael Peirson, the farm's managing director.
Demand for the farm-raised clams continues to build. Cherrystone raised its price to 17 cents a clam this year and plans to boost production to 70 million by 1997.
``We believe there's a good solid market up to about 100 million clams,'' Peirson said.
The farm site next door to Cherrystone Campground is the company's hatchery. After growing to a certain size there, the clams are moved out to a variety of sites in the creeks and bays around the Eastern Shore.
Clams can grow anywhere in the bay and its rivers with adequate salinity levels.
Spawned inside the hatchery, the clams are raised in temperature-controlled water for about three months and then moved outside into creek-fed buckets.
When they grow to about a quarter-inch, they are placed in sand-filled nursery trays, which are covered with a screen to protect the clams from marauding crabs. The trays are placed on the nearby creek bottom.
The trays are dug up after six weeks to six months and brought ashore. They are counted and then sent to one of the company's beds for planting or to one of 10 growers in its cooperative. The clams take 14 months to more than two years to grow to harvest size.
Cherrystone Aquafarm is owned by the Ballard Seafood & Oyster Co. of Norfolk. Family-owned Ballard Seafood has been in the seafood processing business since the early 1900s, dealing mostly in oysters.
Disease and overfishing have decimated the once-abundant and hardy oyster. It's even difficult to raise them on aquafarms. Only about 500,000 oysters were harvested from farms in Virginia last year.
That's one reason clam farming has taken off.
Cherrystone Aquafarm was started in late 1983, when the Ballards hired Peirson, a marine biologist fresh out of school. Their aim was to spawn, raise and sell 5 million clams a year.
It turned out better than that, but it took a while for the farm to succeed.
``We were down $1 million before we started taking in more money than we were spending,'' Peirson said.
Now Cherrystone Aquafarm has sales of about $4 million a year and employs 50 full time during the summer, 32 in the winter. Most of the farm's clams are sold in mid-Atlantic states. It recently built a second hatchery for $400,000 on the Shore's ocean side near Exmore.
``It's been,'' Peirson said, ``a tremendous growing year.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photos
BILL TIERNAN/The Virginian-Pilot
Michael Peirson is the managing director of Cherrystone AquaFarm in
Cheriton, Va. These pots contain 8-week-old clams. Last year, clam
farms in the state produced about 80 million clams, and the Eastern
Shore is home to most of that effort.
Tabi Webb of Cherrystone AquaFarm tests the pH of tanks containing
algae. The algae is used to feed the clams at Cherrystone, the
state's largest clam farm.
by CNB