A recent post on our Facebook page about the recent Irish Farmers’ Association / Bord Iascaigh Mhara, Ireland’s Seafood Development Agency Oyster Industry Workshop in Dungarvan resulted in some fairly frustrated responses from oyster growers in our audience. Specifically we mentioned an interesting presentation by Lee Hunter of new farming methods including the OstreA Spin set-up that we have been selling. A number of you responded by saying that it wasn’t practical to consider new methods when there remained so many issues around delays with licensing.
We reached out to BIM with these responses to see if they had any advice:
We understand the frustration from producers regarding the licensing but there is a simple mechanism within the Licensing regulations to allow them to apply to trial equipment in the short term. The trial must be for a defined period of time and after that it will be necessary to submit a new license application to cover the new system if the trial is successful.
The applicant should apply in writing to the Aquaculture and Foreshore Division of DAFM stating:
- the license number and site reference
- co-ordinates of the proposed location within their licensed site
- detailed structural drawings of the system they propose to trial
- a timeline for the trial
They should also talk to their local DAFM Marine Engineer in advance.
A useful slide from Lee’s presentation is reproduced below.
