| Introduction: Marine farming in France is currently very widely dominated by oyster farming. French oyster production totals 148,467 tons, for a turnover of close to 280 million euros, making France the leading European producer. The two main species concerned are the cup oyster, Crassostrea gigas (140,000 tons) and the flat oyster, Ostrea edulis (2,000 tons), the production of which has collapsed since 1970 following successive epizootics of Marteilia refringens and Bonamia ostreae. French oyster farming is thus in a situation of quasi single-crop farming, with more than 90% of tonnage pertaining to the cup oyster (FAO data from 1993). This situation of quasi single-crop farming leads to the pessimistic observation that one hypothetical crisis in the... |
