Scallop aquaculture

Scallop aquaculture is the commercial activity of cultivating (farming) scallops until they reach a marketable size and can be sold as a consumer product. Wild juvenile scallops, or spat, were collected for growing in Japan as early as 1934.^[1] The first attempts to fully cultivate scallops in farm environments were not recorded until the 1950s and 1960s.^[2] Traditionally, fishing for wild scallops has been the preferred practice, since farming can be expensive. However worldwide declines in wild scallop populations have resulted in the growth of aquaculture. Globally the scallop aquaculture industry is now well established, with a reported annual production totalling over 1,200,000 metric tonnes ^[3] from about 12 species. China and Japan account for about 90% of the reported production.