Scottish Shellfish Farm Production Survey 2020

This report is based on the returns of an annual survey questionnaire sent to all active authorised shellfish farming businesses in Scotland. Statistics on employment, production and value of shellfish from Scottish shellfish farms are presented.


Businesses and sites

The numbers of authorised, active businesses and sites in operation are presented in Tables 3 and 4. There are many sites that held stock not yet ready for market, others were fallow, and some were located in remote areas where cost-effective production and marketing of shellfish proved difficult. In 2020, 167 sites produced shellfish for sale, an increase of 1% since 2019, and 60% of these sites were located in Shetland.

Table 3 - Authorised and active businesses 2011-2020.
Number of Businesses
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Active 153 153 142 144 144 138 132 130 129 125
Table 4 - Active and producing farm sites by region 2020.
Region
Highland Orkney Shetland Strathclyde Western Isles All Scotland
Sites
Active 69 5 137 55 47 313
Producing 29 3 100 23 12 167

Active = Farms in a production growing cycle which may contain stock or be fallow.

Producing = Placing on the market for the table and/or on-growing.

NB: A business may produce more than one species and in more than one region.

Figure 2 - Regional distribution of active shellfish sites in 2020 (number producing given in brackets) and number of producing businesses by region/species.

There were five Several Orders in place for scallop fisheries in 2020 (see Fig. 2) all of which are located in the Highland region.

Table 5 depicts the number of businesses by region and by species: A) in table production, B) in on-growing production and C) showing no production. Many businesses cultivate more than one species on site, a practice made possible by similar cultivation techniques. For example, scallop can be grown together with queen, Pacific oyster with native oyster, and mussel with Pacific oyster. The highest proportion of Pacific oyster businesses are located in Strathclyde while the highest proportion of mussel businesses are in Shetland.

Table 5 - Number of businesses by region and by species 2020.
A) Production for the table
Region
Highland Orkney Shetland Strathclyde Western Isles All Scotland
Pacific oyster 8 1 1 15 2 27
Native oyster 1 0 1 2 0 4
Scallop 2 0 0 0 0 2
Queen 1 0 0 0 0 1
Mussel 7 0 18 4 5 34
Total 19 1 20 21 7 68
b) Production for on-growing to other producers
Region
Highland Orkney Shetland Strathclyde Western Isles All Scotland
Pacific oyster 2 1 0 1 0 4
Native oyster 0 1 0 0 0 1
Scallop 0 0 0 0 0 0
Queen 0 0 0 0 0 0
Mussel 2 0 15 2 0 19
Total 4 2 15 3 0 24
c) No production, actively on-growing or fallow
Region
Highland Orkney Shetland Strathclyde Western Isles All Scotland
Pacific oyster 9 0 0 14 2 25
Native oyster 2 0 0 3 0 5
Scallop 7 0 0 4 0 11
Queen 2 0 0 2 0 4
Mussel 11 2 1 6 5 25
Total 31 2 1 29 7 70

Business production levels by species are shown in Table 6. There were 10 businesses producing more than 200 tonnes of mussels, this remained the same as in 2019. These 10 businesses produced 79% of the total mussel production in Scotland. There were four businesses that produced more than 200,000 Pacific oysters. The production from these businesses accounted for 71% of the Scottish Pacific oyster total.

Table 6 - Business production levels by species 2020.
Species 1-
10
11-
20
21-
30
31-
40
41-
50
51-
60
61-
70
71-
80
81-
90
91-
100
101-200 >200 Total
Pacific oyster (000s) 9 2 2 1 2 3 0 1 1 0 2 4 27
Native oyster (000s) 2 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4
Scallop (000s) 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2
Queen (000s) 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Mussel (tonnes) 6 2 5 3 2 0 0 0 1 0 5 10 34

Contact

Email: lorna.munro@gov.scot

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