OLH01 - From Seed to Market: Supporting Decision-Making in Shellfish Farming

Shellfish farming requires a series of important decisions throughout the production cycle, from selecting seed size and deployment timing to planning harvesting and commercialization. These decisions directly influence production performance, profitability and business sustainability. Producers often rely on experience and local knowledge to estimate growth rates and harvesting periods. However, environmental variability and changing production conditions can make planning difficult. This challenge invites participants to develop a digital decision-support tool for oyster and clam farming in the Ria Formosa. By combining biological, environmental and production-related information, teams will create a prototype capable of helping producers explore different production scenarios and support planning decisions. The solution may estimate growth timelines, time to market size, harvesting windows and other production indicators relevant to shellfish farmers. Future developments could also integrate historical information on harvesting restrictions and environmental conditions to provide more comprehensive planning support.

Participants will develop a prototype digital solution designed to support shellfish farmers in planning production and harvesting activities.
The solution may integrate information such as species, seed size, production area, environmental conditions and historical records to simulate different farming scenarios. The prototype could help estimate growth timelines, identify harvesting windows and support decision-making throughout the production cycle.
The objective is to transform available data into practical information that helps producers optimize production planning, reduce uncertainty and improve operational efficiency.

This challenge would benefit from a multidisciplinary team including:
• Shellfish farmers and aquaculture professionals
• Marine biologists
• Aquaculture specialists
• Data analysts and data scientists
• Software developers
• Environmental scientists
• GIS specialists
• Database specialists
• UX/UI designers
Knowledge of shellfish production, growth modelling and environmental data analysis would be particularly valuable.