Oyster farming near Chek Jawa

The world is her oyster
Jonathan Choo Asia One 15 May 12;

Despite zero experience in oyster farming, this plucky woman ploughed $500,000 into a derelict oyster farm and successfully persuaded restaurants here to buy local molluscs.

She had no prior experience in aquaculture.

But that didn't stop her from venturing into unchartered waters and investing half a million dollars to rebuild a derelict oyster farm which had gone bust.

That was three years ago.

Today, Madam Fanny Su, 50, juggles her full-time job as a manager for an international organisation and being a part-time farmer on her oyster farm, Hai Loong Mariculture, located off Pulau Ubin, near Chek Jawa.

Her venture into oyster cultivation began when she was looking to do more with her love for the outdoors.

She initially considered fish farming.

In 2009, she started scouting for a fish farm to buy and discovered there was an oyster farm which had gone out of business about a year ago.

Doing her sums, Madam Su found that oyster farming could be more cost effective, she says.

So she paid the farm's previous owners $50,000. Says Madam Su with a laugh: "It came with a small motorboat and a cat."

The oyster farm was in very bad shape, almost half sinking when she got it.

It took four months to rebuild and she engaged contractors and sought help from the local fishing community.

The structure of the farm, which used to span 2,000 sq m, now covers an area of 4,000 sq m.

The total cost of the repair and renovation works? A cool $500,000.

It was a risk from the beginning as oysters take at least a year to mature and there was no guarantee of a market for locally-cultivated ones.

Having no prior experience, Madam Su ramped up her game by attending overseas trade shows and oyster farming courses in the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia to learn the ropes of the trade.

The farm now cultivates Pacific oysters from spats (baby oysters) delivered from Australia and Chile every four months.

Today, after three years of persistence and hard work, the farm has begun to yield results.

Now the farm employs five workers and supplies 3,000 oysters a week to about a dozen restaurant-chain regulars here and to private consumers.

The farm has 500,000 Pacific oysters growing in baskets at any one time, and they are working toward producing 20,000 of the plump shellfish a month.

Madam Su reckons it will take at least another five years to recover her investment.

And it was no easy feat persuading local restaurants to buy her oysters at first.

Recalls Madam Su: "I went cold-calling door-to-door, carrying a small insulated ice-box containing fresh oysters! I started at Clarke Quay and Boat Quay.

"Most believed that imported oysters are the best. I had to persuade them otherwise. I invited the restaurant managers and chefs to sample our oysters and let them taste the quality for themselves."

They were eventually won over by the plump, fleshy and fresh produce.

Before delivery, the oysters have to be scraped clean, sorted into three different size groups and undergo extensive depuration, a process of cleaning, purging and sterilisation for two days to kill off bacteria and viruses that may be present.

The oysters are then placed in a cooler water tank, ready for shipment.

Once a week, the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore checks the surrounding water, the depuration system and collects oysters for testing.

Every weekend, Madam Su and her brother, Mr Frank Su, 58, who is retired from the army, pitch in.

She'll be busy with the paperwork and scraping duties, while her brother does maintenance work and monitors the farm.

For her, it really is a labour of love.

This article was first published in The New Paper.