2024 Applied Shellfish Farming Course Registration is OPEN!

Please fill out this form to make an account and register for Spring 2024 if you have not done so already. You need one account per registrant.

Course Information:

  • Instructor: Dr. Hisham Abdelrahman
  • Time: Tuesdays @ 6:30-9:30PM (EST)
  • Date: January 30 – May 7, 2024
  • Platform: In-person (RWU Bristol Camus, Rhode Island, USA) and Remote option available
  • Cost: $300 (payment details below)

Course Description:

Applied Shellfish Farming will provide an introduction and the needed technical background via weekly in-person and zoom lectures to undertake or work within a small shellfish farming enterprise. Topics in the course include: an overview of shellfish farming, shellfish biology, farm site selection, the permitting process and regulatory aspects of securing and maintaining a lease, an overview of shellfish nursery and grow-out systems, risk management strategies, other technical aspects of shellfish farming, and business and marketing management advice from a variety of guest lecturers whom are professionals in their field. Upon completion of this course, Participants will have a firm understanding of shellfish biology and develop the technical knowledge pertaining to operating a shellfish business.

Payment Information:

The non-RWU student cost for the course is $300 USD.

Payment for this course will be required via debit or credit card when you making an account in order to finalize registration.

Contact Information:
Dr. Hisham Abdelrahman, Assistant Professor of Marine Biology- Aquaculture Extension Specialist: HAbdelrahman@rwu.edu

Susanna Osinski, CEED Shellfish Field Operations Manager: SOsinski@rwu.edu

RWU Shellfish Program: ShellfishProgram@g.rwu.edu

2024 Applied Shellfish Farming Course

The 2024 Applied Shellfish Farming Course is finally back! The ASF Course will be held this spring, from Jan – May 2024 on Tuesday evenings @6:30pm (EST) by our newest faculty instructor, Dr. Hisham Abdelrahman. The course will be offered both in-person at Roger William University’s Bristol Campus as well as online via zoom. We will post the sign-up survey to register for the course in the next few weeks, as well as additional information about the course, so stay tuned!!

Applied Shellfish Farming will provide the technical background and introduction needed to undertake or work within a small shellfish farming enterprise in Southern New England via weekly in-person zoom lectures and dialogues. Topics in the course include: an overview of shellfish farming, shellfish biology, farm site selection, the permitting process and regulatory aspects of securing and maintaining a lease, an overview of shellfish nursery and grow-out systems, risk management strategies, other technical aspects of shellfish farming, and business and marketing management advice from a variety of guest lecturers who are professionals in their field. Upon completion of this course, attendees will have a firm understanding of shellfish biology and develop the technical knowledge pertaining to operating a shellfish business in New England.

If you have any questions, drop us a note at ShellfishProgram@g.rwu.edu. If you have emailed us this past year asking to be put on the list, keep an eye on your email for the registration link there as well. Hope to see you all soon!

2023 Applied Shellfish Farming Course

The annual Applied Shellfish Farming Course will be on HIATUS for Spring 2023. Due to a faculty change, the ASF Course will unfortunately still be on hiatus for 2023. We hope to offer the course again next year as we introduce our new faculty to this great program! Traditionally the class runs weekly from the end of January through the end of May. In efforts of addressing COVID-19 concerns in RI and on the Roger Williams University campus, the course will be offered in a remote (online) setting only.

Roger Williams University’s Center for Economic and Environmental Development will be offering our Applied Shellfish Farming course for business start-ups in the region (and beyond). This non-credit course consists of 15 evening lectures (Tuesday’s 6:30 to 9:00 PM) over four months that cover the range of information you may need to help with starting or improving your farm. Participants will learn the basic principles of hatchery, nursery and grow-out operations, risk management, siting, permitting, and business management.

The course will be remote in 2024 in an effort to keep participants and the Roger Williams University community safe. Weekly live-meetings paired with our website will allow participants to ask questions they may have about the aquaculture topics discussed that evening. Each class will also be recorded for later viewing, if needed by the participants. Over the last four years there have been remote only participants that have successfully taken this course in 24 states and 8 countries.

If you plan on taking the course please drop a note to ShellfishProgram@g.rwu.edu and we will get back in touch with you with more details on how to sign up for and tune in to the course. More information is available under the FAQ page of this website.

Narragansett Bay Recovers from Algal Bloom, Shellfish Safe

By Meredith Haas, January 7, 2017
An unprecedented algal bloom that spanned from Long Island to Maine triggered a shellfishing ban in Narragansett Bay for most of October. After it ended and shellfish beds reopened, fishermen, shellfish farmers, and environmental managers convened at a public meeting in December to try to understand what caused the bloom and what to do about future events.

Monitors found elevated counts of a type of plankton that was responsible for the bloom outside of Newport Harbor at the end of September, said Angelo Liberti, chief of water resources at the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM), at the meeting held to share information that DEM and the state health department collected during the bloom, and to discuss future monitoring and testing efforts.

Liberti was referring to Pseudo-nitzschia, a genus of plankton that can produce domoic acid, a neurotoxin that, if ingested in dangerous amounts, can cause illnesses ranging from gastrointestinal problems and lethargy to short-term memory loss…..

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE