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A 'Google map' for oyster farmers

Liv CasbenAAP
Oyster farmer Ewan Mcash created a trail-blazing phone app to help his industry here and overseas. (LIV CASBEN)
Camera IconOyster farmer Ewan Mcash created a trail-blazing phone app to help his industry here and overseas. (LIV CASBEN) Credit: AAP

Four years ago, oyster farmer Ewan McAsh stood on the banks of the pristine Clyde River, fed up and worn out.

The then-38-year-year-old had been farming for a decade, working 12-hour days, and getting a break from the business was rare and holidays even rarer.

"I used to work seven days a week running the farm by myself, directing all traffic, and I was the only one that knew what to do and when to do it."

"Big hours, very tide dependent and very labour intensive ... I went looking for a solution."

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McAsh, who farms at Batemans Bay on the NSW south coast, tried various farming technologies but none were suitable.

So with the help of his co-founders and a software developer, the oyster farmer set about creating a mobile phone application specific to ocean farming.

"The secret to oyster farming is knowing where oysters are, what they are and when to come back to grade them, harvest them, inspect them."

McAsh describes what he came up with a little like Google Maps for oyster farming.

"It's basically a digital tool to help farmers be a lot more efficient at what they do, to get their farm operation knowledge out of their heads and be able to share that."

As well as recording the location of the oysters, and the maintenance required, it gave the father of four children time back with his family.

"Farmers are reporting to us they're spending up to 50 per cent less time on the water ... up to seven hours a week less communicating redundant information ... so a lot of time saved in operations," McAsh tells AAP from his oyster lease at Batemans Bay.

Fast forward to 2022 and the Australian app - called oceanfarmr - is making its mark in the industry.

From the Clyde River to Marlborough Sounds in New Zealand and across to the UK, 70 farmers have taken up the app and McAsh plans to grow that number to 700 in the next two years.

Much of the interest has come from America's growing sustainable aquaculture industry and McAsh is preparing to move his family to the US to develop that market.

California's oldest oyster company, Tomales Bay Oysters, produces two million oysters a year and was one of the first to take up the technology.

At the helm is Heidi Gregory, who took over the reins when her father died.

"My dad had the oyster farm all in his head, mapped out, and knew where everything was and when he put it out. He passed away and I had to map everything and put it on whiteboards and found it wasn't really working."

Speaking to AAP from the company's headquarters in Marshall on US west coast, Gregory says she was "stoked" to read about the app in an industry magazine.

And it's changed her life.

"You can look out over your whole farm and it will say ... line two area three the oysters have been out on this line for 462 days and I will tell my guys I want you to go harvest that line," she said.

"It's simplified things and made things so much easier.

"There are some other companies out there, but they're really complicated. It's simple to use."

Back at McAsh's shared lease on the Clyde River, the farmers handle up to a thousand oyster baskets a day, spread across 200 different river locations.

With 16 different size crops and eight different crops, it's easy to understand how information overload can happen.

"So the farmers don't have to remember it and they can be a lot more efficient and targeted day-to-day," McAsh says.

While the Australian-developed digital technology was originally designed for oysters it has now been expanded to mussels and seaweed.

Without it, his farm wouldn't have withstood the floods, COVID-19 pandemic and bushfires that have plagued the industry over the past two years.

"We've been able to double production using digital technology, we've become a much more sustainable operation, we don't need to work seven days a week," he said.

"I designed oceanfarmr to solve my own farming problem, but in doing so have solved the problem of many farmers all over the world."

The app costs between $A95 to $A375 a month, depending on the type of subscription.

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