By Elizabeth Gabriel
People feel connected to NOFA because of our shared love of the land and farming and because we’ve gotten to know each other over the 50 years we’ve been around - from gathering at conferences to sharing best practices on farm tours to reading about each other’s farms. We at The Natural Farmer want to highlight the people who make up NOFA and hope we can feature at least one interview in every issue.
Want us to share your story? Have a farmer you’d like to interview? Contact TNF@NOFA.org if you’d like to be interviewed or interview somebody and get published in TNF.
As I’ve been researching this issue on aquaculture, it’s been a delight to come across the presence of more women farmers than I expected. Whether it’s the images of farmers on the high seas slapped by a large wave or a fisher hauling a large net onto shore, the prototypical ocean farmer is a large white man. When I asked Lisa Calvo about working in a men-dominated field, she was clearly not phased. Lisa says she gets this question all the time, and while sometimes she feels like she’s sitting in on the “old boys club,” mostly, “I’m an older-generation woman, and it’s nice to have younger men and women around to help with some of the harder labor tasks.”
Lisa started Sweet Amalia oyster farm in Cape May, New Jersey, on Lenape territory, on the Cape May Peninsula in an area locals call the Cape Shore Flats. Named after her oldest child, Sweet Amalia uses European rack and bag culture methods that are environmentally sound and enable the oysters to provide many benefits to the ecosystem, actually making the bay healthier for man and mollusk alike. The oysters are hand-harvested and sold via wholesale and retail at Sweet Amalia Market + Kitchen. I spoke to Lisa during the low tide, which dictates her schedule between early spring and late fall, sometimes requiring her to work in the dark and sometimes midday. Her love and appreciation for her work were palpable through the phone, as was the hard work it took to get to where she is today. I’m delighted to share some of her journey.
For more information about buying Sweet Amalia’s oysters or to tour the farm, visit https://www.sweetamalia.com.
TNF: Briefly tell us about you and your farm.
Lisa Calvo: I’m an oyster farmer. I run Sweet Amalia Oyster Farm, a medium-sized farm in New Jersey. We harvest about 300,000-500,000 oysters annually. Though I grew up in NJ, I lived in Virginia for a while when my daughter Amalia was a toddler. We started the oyster business as a trial. Eventually, we relocated to NJ and had a second child. We paused the oyster business and my partner focused on policy work in the shellfish industry while I focused on research and Extension work at Rutgers. Though I enjoyed the Extension work, at some point, I asked myself where my passion was. I really enjoyed being an entrepreneur and the fresh new challenges you’re always stepping into with businesses, so we restarted Amalia’s.
Now, we’re really growing it. We focus on high-quality products and offer direct delivery in Philadelphia and South Jersey. We also offer farm tours and oyster tastings, which have been really well received and I love doing them.
I love what I do. Interacting with restaurants and chefs is a joy - seeing them feature what we grow - and of course, I love being outside interacting with the water and the tides. It seems like there’s some renaissance in oyster farming, which is exciting. I hope it means I can secure myself, another full-time employee, and some part-time employees.
TNF: How did you first get interested in oyster farming?
Calvo: I came to oyster farming from a marine science background. I was always fascinated with Jacques Cousteou and with the ocean. I studied at University of Delaware and landed my first job at Rutgers University’s Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory an Agriculture Experiment Station which researches and provides resources on fisheries and aquaculture. I would help people with their own farming operations and help others get started. I didn't have family who fished or worked even closely in this field, even though we grew up so close to the ocean.
At some point, I became interested in the history of oyster fishing in New Jersey and worldwide. Here in New Jersey, sail and schooners were used in the 18th and 1900s to fish for oysters. This was Bayshore culture and there were shucking houses, trades and art all a part of this industry. Oysters are a keystone species in the ecosystem in that they define the ecosystem - they are nutritious, but they aren’t just a food. They’re critical in estuaries, and if they’re removed, things will go upside down. Oysters purify the water and sequester Nitrogen.
When a disease was introduced here in NJ, oyster populations were devastated and livelihoods were threatened. I really understood the ecological interactions and got deep into the science to understand the ecology of the oyster host and the pathogen. Our research team focused on developing a disease-resistant oyster; such breakthrough research was essential for contemporary oyster aquaculture.
TNF: What were Indigenous ways of oyster farming and how has this inspired your work?
Calvo: Native Americans certainly gathered oysters and used shell middens long before Colonization. A somewhat recent study by the Smithsonian found that Indigenous oyster fisheries were hugely productive and sustainably managed for decades. Some of the oldest oyster middens are found in California and Massachusetts and date back more than 6,000 years. There’s a lot we can learn.
More recently, fisheries developed with efficient harvest methods and there was a period when overfishing became a problem. Still, today, these fisheries are very carefully managed to support the recovery and sustainability of oyster populations. In New Jersey, oyster fishing and farming were combined. Oystermen retained leases from the state where they would transplant wild-caught oysters to promote oyster growth and manage harvests. These downbay areas would yield a saltier flavored oyster, which was favored in the marketplace. Both oyster growth and flavor are influenced by the place they are grown; sometimes they grow faster and others slower, and some are more salty and others less salty.
TNF: Access to land for terrestrial farmers is one of the industry's biggest hurdles. What it’s like to gain access to waterways?
Calvo: In Delaware Bay, there are 30,000 acres designated for farming that can be leased. After a catastrophic oyster disease struck the bay in the late 1950s, the practice of moving oysters to the leased areas of the bay was no longer viable because the disease was more prevalent in the lower regions of the bay where the leases are located. Today, oystermen harvest oysters directly from the upper bay oyster beds. The practice of “shell planting” helps to increase oyster populations in the bay. Shell planting or farming uses discarded oyster shells to provide a substrate for juvenile oysters to attach and grow on. This helps to restore and sustain oyster populations.
Contemporary oyster farming uses the historic lease grounds. Unlike the fishery practices, farmed oysters start out in a hatchery and are typically contained in bags or cages. Leases and policies in general around aquaculture are still evolving and getting better all the time. When I started doing this, it wasn’t clear what was needed, and there were many different regulatory authorities with different hands in oyster farming, so you’d hear different things from different places. Now, it’s more streamlined. Aquaculture development councils are helping promote policies to grow the industry (or not grow it where it shouldn’t expand). I’d love to see more comprehensive planning so the industry grows. There should be a broad timeframe and a plan for growth, and there’s not.
Oysters are also very susceptible to pollution. Luckily, we don’t have the red tide, like they do in other regions. There are strong monitoring efforts to monitor water quality and important regulations to ensure that the oysters we grow are safe to eat. Regulations control where farms are placed and how we manage the oyster after harvest for temperature regulation.
We don’t own the water we’re working in. It’s a privilege to be there, but it’s really a public space.
Perhaps because our family is farming there, it prevents some activities from taking place there, too. I see why people might not like that. It’s tricky to navigate all the desires and wants. What we as farmers can do - we can educate and give tours and let people know what we do and why it’s good for the environment. I think people are more and more interested in getting to know their food and understand its impact than they used to be.
TNF: Can you tell us more about how you grow oysters?
Calvo: At Sweet Amalia’s, we practice “cultchless” farming, meaning we purchase baby oysters from hatcheries. We get them at 2mm in size - like a tiny sand grain. Our farm is on a 23-acre lease, but we use only a small portion of the area. Our area is intertidal, meaning it is above water at low tide and underwater at high tide. Our culture method is known as rack and bag. We use 10’ long racks that sit on the sand and we put the oysters in bags that are strapped down with bungee cords on the racks. They’re up off the sand and they can be tended at low tide. We work at low tide. We don’t even have a boat. The hard part of this is that we get these small tidal windows to work in; some days, they’re 5 hours, and sometimes there’s none. It also means we always change the time of day we need to work.
From the point we purchase them at the hatchery, they take one to three years to grow, but we always shoot for them to be ready around 2 years. Just like succession planting on vegetable farms, we always make sure we have different ages of stock, so we have a consistent harvest. I’ve heard of some oysters growing to size in 8-9 months, but they are probably underwater all the time. There are, of course, other methods, like growing on the bottom of the bay or ocean in cages. Every farm is a little different based on where they are and what type of farm gear is most suitable.
TNF: What is it like to be a woman in the industry? Is it pretty male-dominant?
Calvo: I see more and more women coming into it all the time. People come in from different sectors which is really cool, from fisheries, restaurants, or even attorneys. Even though working on the water has been a male-dominated field, I don’t think that gender dictates one’s success in oyster farming. I like the idea of having diverse perspectives in the field and I’m excited by great contributions that women are making in aquaculture. The work can be physically demanding, but for me, it’s about working smarter and cultivating a supportive team. I am pretty sure that being a mother has elevated my ability to nurture and multi-task - a couple of really valuable skills for a farmer. So there’s that.
TNF: What do you love most about farming and why?
Calvo: I really feel really centered by being so connected to nature and being out on the water; it’s quiet. I love watching the sky and the tides and today and tomorrow’s changing palette. It’s humbling and centering work and puts a lot into perspective. Of course, I love people eating our oysters and saying they’re delicious.
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