Rock Oyster Exports May Beat Target

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32114, 9 October 1969, Page 28

Rock Oyster Exports May Beat Target

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, October 8.

Assistance planned by the Government for the rock oyster industry over the next five years could result in the 1978 target figure set by the National Development Conference being achieved by rock oyster farmers well before the estimated date, the Minister of Marine (Mr Scott) said today.

Mr Scott was announcing plans for a four-fold increase in the number of young oysters to be supplied by the Marine Department next year.

The department had mounted a highly successful young oyster supply project earlier this year, involving the use of 100,000 spat-eatching sticks, and the oysters supplied to farmers from that effort should be worth up to $250,000 on toe export market when sold in 1972, he said. He had now recommended that the Government approve a project to begin next year when toe Marine Department

would set out 400,000 spatcatching sticks and would establish a semi-permanent base for the project on the Mahurangi Harbour, near Warkworth. slm IN 1973

“Given a reasonable spatfall in the area, which has so far tested out very well as a spat-catching station, the resulting rock oyster crop could be worth about slm on the export, market in 1973.”

The plan included progressively increasing toe number of spat-catching sticks each year until 1974, when 600,000 sticks would be used. During toe five-year .period the Marine Department would also set up small experimental spat-catching installations

throughout the rock oyster farming districts to help establish the areas of most prolific spat-fall. Since the N.D.C. had recommended that the Government continue and extend the supply of young oysters to farmers, the department had completed a survey which showed conclusively that the future of the industry lay in the establishment of a full toreeyear farming cycle which had so far been successfully developed on. the Government oyster farms in Northland. Government pilot schemes had encouraged 58 private oyster farmers to take up seabed leases, and another 50 applications for leases were being processed. 600 ACRES The department’s survey showed that about 600 acres of oyster farms would be either in production or in the first stages of setting up by 1974.

“Practical experience has shown that a well organised oyster farm of five acres can be set up for about $13,000 over a period of three years, and will thereafter produce a gross return of up to $20,000 a year. The potential return from 600 acres at a point in time between 1974 and 1978. could, therefore, be about $2.5m.”

Bearing In mind that the rock oyster industry produced only $9OOO in 1967, such growth could only be described as phenomenal, Mr Scqtt said. The department's survey and report was admittedly conservative and did not take into account the invisibles of the industry such as the potenial for expansion of the earliest oyster farmers who began production two years ago. EXTENSIVE Rock oyster farming now extended from north of Kerikeri to the Coromandel Peninsula, and included toe Kaipara Harbour, where some of the earlier oyster farmers were becoming well established. CONTINUED HELP The Marine Department would continue its pilot oyster farming schemes, and the supply of young oysters to farmers for as long as it was necessary in the interests of establishing a thriving industry. There was no likelihood of Marine Department farming hampering the sales of oysters from private farms, Mr Scott said. On the other hand the marketing of oysters from Government farms had been and could continue to be of some help in establishing markets overseas.