@article{Tisdell:206476,
      recid = {206476},
      author = {Tisdell, Clem},
      title = {Exploring the Demands for Farmed Giant Clams and their  Components: Approaches and Problems},
      address = {1990-02},
      number = {1743-2016-140769},
      series = {Research Reports in the Economics of Giant Clam  Mariculture},
      pages = {16},
      year = {1990},
      abstract = {The technical possibility of farming giant clams has been  established by the Micronesian Mariculture Demonstration  Center (MMDC), by the Australian Centre for International  Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and other organizations.  Enterprises have already been established to farm giant  clams commercially. However, the extent of market demand  for giant clams and their components has not been  established. Clearly the economics of farming will depend  both on demand factors and cost considerations. To  determine the likely demand for farmed clams is not an easy  task. Such markets as have existed in the past have been  based on natural stocks. Supply from these has been uneven  and has not been sustained due to overharvesting.  Pre-existing markets for natural clam stocks and their  components are likely to provide at best an imprecise guide  to the demand for farmed clams. For example, natural stocks  have been insufficient or protected in some areas such as  Australia which has meant that a local market for clam meat  has not been established. Clam meat for consumption would  be an experiential good for Australians and Westerners and,  one suspects, many Asians, including Japanese.
Markets  exist for giant clams as aquarium specimens and for their  shells. Surveys have recently been undertaken in Australia  to determine the size of the Australian market for these  end-uses and the main findings are reported.
The market for  clams for meat is likely to be difficult to gauge. In many  markets the product would, in effect, be a new product, and  for example, new product cycles might apply. In the past  attempts have been made to use international trade  statistics and the market for possible substitutes, e.g.  scallops as a guide to the potential market. These  approaches all have drawbacks. As for substitutes, it would  for example seem that substitutes for clam meat would vary  with the age and method of preparation of the clam. Younger  clams, say on the half-shell, can be used as entrée items  and might, up to a point compete with other entrée items  such as oysters. Older clams are usually separated into  muscle and mantle components which can be frozen and which  lend themselves to retail sale in blister packs. Evidence  about likely commercial demand remains fragmentary but  available data will be reviewed. Given the data problems  and the likelihood that to some extent ‘supply creates its  own demand’, standard economic analysis may be of limited  value in determining the demand for clam meat. Some  observations will also be made on other possible uses of  and markets for giant clams and on subsistence demand for  clams.},
      url = {http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/206476},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.206476},
}