Published by Penobscot Bay Press on November 26, 2025.
BLUE HILL—“The payoff has been awesome,” said Abby Barrows, owner and operator of Deer Isle Oyster Company, “and really made some of the solar systems possible on my farm.”
Barrows is talking about the impact of the $4,000 Spark! grant she received through the Island Institute and how it has helped her farm make the switch to renewable energy. “If I was just doing it on my own,” Barrows said, “I’d have to wait quite a few more years, to save up enough money.”
For the Island Institute’s Phoebe Walsh, the micro grants, which they are now calling Community Impact Grants, “are an amazing way to help the aquaculture industry grow and to help people who really need it—when they need it, where they need it,”
Small-scale oyster or shellfish farming is definitely not a get-rich-quick scheme for owner-operators. First, there’s the three-to-five-years wait from the time they apply to the state for a license until they finally have market-size oysters ready to sell. That means zero cash coming in for the first few years, but plenty going out. Even small oyster farms need the basics: a skiff and outboard to get out to the farm, hundreds of growing bags, lines, buoys, moorings, a float to work on and store gear on, tumblers and graders, packaging materials, refrigeration…the list goes on.
For the Island Institute, helping small and nascent oyster farms and other aquaculture entrepreneurs only makes sense. At the heart of the Institute’s mission is helping isolated coastal and island communities navigate economic and climate change.
That means working to develop economically and environmentally sustainable solutions for both traditional fisheries and for Maine’s growing aquaculture sector. At the same time, the Institute is committed to protecting our working waterfront and strengthening Maine’s waterfront communities.
Oyster farming fits the bill. It’s one of the very few forms of farming that’s both beneficial to the environment and sustainable. Oyster farms don’t need any external input, no added water, no fertilizer, no feed. The oysters’ only source of nutrients comes from the water, which they clean and filter constantly.
The only things about running an oyster farm that’s not beneficial to the environment are the plastics, the outboards on the skiffs and the gas-powered generators used to power the tumblers and graders out on the farm.
Switching away from the plastics that are endemic to aquaculture in the mesh bags, lines, crates, and packaging—developing natural, non-polluting alternatives that don’t break down into microplastics— is an ongoing process. Barrows, a leader in that field, continues to test viable, sustainable alternatives.But replacing gas-powered outboards and generators with solar-powered equipment is possible today, and that’s where the Island Institute’s micro grants come in. For an owner-operator running an oyster farm on a tight budget, the switch to solar is a major expense; the grants let them kickstart the conversion.
Joe Tapley and Kristen Greer, who own and operate Tapley Cove Oyster Company on the Bagaduce River in Brooksville are constantly in awe of the beauty that surrounds them when they are working ‘on the farm’, Tapley said. For them, moving to more sustainable and environmentally friendly equipment is part of preserving and protecting their small part of the coastline.
