Resources Database

Atlantic Captain’s Academy offers a variety of Coast Guard approved courses for Coast Guard captain’s license candidates.

Social license to operate (SLO), a concept that describes community acceptance and approval of incoming industry, offers a lens for better understanding these barriers and an opportunity to identify strategies for successful development. Efforts to measure and predict social license have begun, but these efforts primarily focus on company actions and impacts. This study seeks to expand the utility of social license within the aquaculture sector by developing a preliminary quantitative framework that can predict a community’s willingness to issue SLO prior to siting.

Matt Parker, aquaculture business specialist, presents basic business concepts such as writing a business plan, developing pro forma statements, costs associated production, and record keeping to determine the costs of production.

Aquaculture risk management fact sheet covering the types of risks aquaculturists deal with and how to manage these risks include both insurance and non-insurance options.

Reviews the keys to running a successful business; the four P's of marketing, wholesale distributors, risks, and sales.

A brief overview of what aquaculture is, why people do it, and how people do it in Maine.

Provides advising and financing to fisheries and aquaculture businesses to improve their long-term viability, create and maintain quality jobs, safeguard marine-related infrastructure and environments, and help preserve the cultural integrity of Maine’s working waterfront.

Reviews the different types of disaster insurance that would cover hurricanes and typhoons, oil spills, harmful algal blooms, and other types of disasters, both natural and manmade, that cause a aquaculture farm to be harmed or fail.

Powerpoint on biofouling including, economic impact, general impact, common fouling organisms (macroalgae, tunicates, hydroids, boring sponge, over-set of barnacles, mussels, or oysters), controlling fouling, and methods to avoid, mitigate, or prevent the effects of biofouling.

Focuses primarily on the environmental sustainability of shellfish aquaculture including resource enhancement, habitat restoration, eutrophication, the impacts of farms on water quality, and harvest methods.

Overview of mussel farming systems, mussel spat collection, seed stripping and stocking, problems occasionally encountered, processing, packaging and shipping, site selection, and planning a business.

Fact sheet on aquaculture lease hearings which are an adjudicatory hearing. It also includes the criteria for issuing aquaculture leases.

DMR welcomes and encourages comment on aquaculture lease applications. This explains the process, scoping sessions, submitting a comment, speaking at a public hearing and more.

The Maine Aquaculture Financing Resources Manual, developed by MAA Project Manager Christian Brayden with support from FocusMaine, is an in-depth summary of all known financing resources available to Maine aquaculture producers.

Report on the mud blister polychaete worm, Polydora websteri, including a description, life history, settlement, burrowing, treatments, and biosecurity.

The business plan features include short & long-term budget projections & tracking, financial projection and analysis tools, monthly cash flow projections, costs of production analysis, profitability analysis, sensitivity analysis, and breakeven analysis. The production plan offers short & long-term production projections & tracking data-based growth projections, monthly sales planning & tracking, and a production calendar. If you are interested in setting up a business plan, please reach out to Christian at [email protected].

These risk management tools are designed to help Maine aquaculture producers find new ways to identify and respond to risk on their farms and in their businesses. The tools include information and visuals to help farmers identify risk factors and risk management within each of the five categories of risk as well as aquaculture crop insurance options currently available.

Intended to help prospective farmers to identify, record, monitor, and manage production hazards, and ultimately minimize production-related risk. Discusses types of risk in aquaculture, record keeping, environmental conditions, biofouling organisms, predators, diseases, parasites, invasive species, and operational procedures.

Dr. Carole Engle, a specialist in aquaculture economics, discusses cash-flow for aquaculture businesses, how to maintain a positive cash-flow position, and common pitfalls in developing a cash-flow budgeting.

Dr. Carole Engle, a specialist in aquaculture economics, gives an overview on how to survive during cash deficits using short-term cash management plans and determining how much debt is too much to take on by calculating the debt to asset ratio.

Reviews business management skills, such as finance, record keeping, marketing, and personnel management. More aquaculture businesses fail because of poor management than poor production practices.

This brochure explains the benefits of shellfish aquaculture for the environment including improving water quality, increasing species diversity, removing excess nitrogen, and not needing fertilizers, chemicals, or antibiotics.