Enrollment in a new program offered through the University of Connecticut (UConn) tripled this year. The course, “Foundations of Shellfish Farming Training,” is a 12-week course run by Connecticut SeaGrant, a UConn extension. The course is geared toward people who are interested in starting a shellfish farm.
“It’s very difficult to cover all of the things that shellfish farmers are going to need to know as they get going and as they’re growing animals, but we cover the basics,” One of the course instructors and the co-owner of the Indian River Shellfish oyster farm, Michael Gilman said. “We do business, basic starting businesses, running businesses, marketing business planning, we talk about species that are cultured in Long Island Sound… and what are some of the rules and regulations that go along with that.”
SeaGrant is a national university-partnership program run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Each state has its own chapter of SeaGrant that partners with a state university. Connecticut SeaGrant is partnered with UConn.
The program has been running for four years. Between 12 and 15 people enrolled in the program each year for the first three years it ran, according to Gilman. This year, 36 people enrolled.
“It’s not only people who are interested in growing shellfish that are taking the class, it’s people who are interested in the whole aquaculture sphere, which is a lot more than just growing oysters and selling them to the half shell market,” Gilman said.
There are only 40 licensed shellfish farms in the state. Sean Reilly owns one of them. He owns New England Oyster Farm, which is on the west side of Bear Island.
Reilly spent years working as a first mate on a fishing charter vessel before taking a corporate job. He decided to transition to aquaculture because he knew he wanted to work on the water. He was originally interested in kelp farming, which is another growing industry in the state. However, kelp farms are rarely profitable—there isn’t a large market for the products in the United States—and shellfish farming is a $16 million industry in the state.
He took SeaGrant’s course in 2024 so he could learn about shellfish farming.
“Because Mike himself is a shellfish farmer, he shared a lot of his personal experiences, aside from just teaching about the regulatory process for the state of Connecticut,” Reilly said. “He allowed us to skip a lot of the pain points that beginning farmers and startups might experience, just because he had already experienced them and told us about what to do, what to avoid, so that in itself was incredibly helpful.”
Three high schools in Connecticut are dedicated to aquaculture: the Bridgeport Regional Aquaculture Science & Technology Education Center, the Marine Science Magnet High School in Groton, and The Sound School in New Haven.
“We tell people in our class all the time (that they need to enter the industry),” Gilman said. “It’s not a PhD, it’s not a scientific degree in oyster farming, it’s can you work on the water from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m.? Do you get seasick? Can you plumb? Are you open to learning how to weld? How good are you at working with your hands? How much are you okay with learning how to do these things? Working on captaining a vessel, driving a vessel. It’s those types of leadership qualities, those types of things are super important in our industry.”
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