An industry that grows 15 per cent for 15 years is experiencing significant growth.
That's the experience being faced by oyster farmers in North East USA.
Associate Professor at Roger Williams University at Bristol at Rhode Island, Dale Leavitt says shellfish farmers have yet to meet the growing demand in the US and new farmers are being recruited each year.
The expansion Dale says is being deliberately managed to avoid industrialising the sector by maintaining its small, family business scale.
"There's a conscious limitation we've done in our area to try to keep this as a small farm type of industry.
"Most of our farms are run by two or three people often times a family.
"It reflects back on some of the other agricultural enterprises that have been developing in the East Coast.
"For example, the poultry industry which has been really taken over by only one or two companies and they have become production giants.
"The lifestyle and the culture of the North East where I'm from just says we don't want that to happen", he said.
Dale Leavitt is visiting Tasmania as part of a professional exchange following a visit by Tasmanian Nuffield scholar and oyster researcher Ian Duthie.
While Australia does have some farms and family farms that are vertically integrated, Ian Duthie says the majority remain small scale businesses.
"Shellfish farming is not that easily run as a factory sort of enterprise because you are reliant on the environment.
The environment doesn't always behave the same year in, year out".
