Barnacle culture: background, potential and challenges

There are approximately a dozen species of commercially interesting barnacles worldwide, some of which have been cultured on a semi-industrial scale. These species are listed and information is provided with regard to geographical distribution, landings and prices. Traditionally, 'goose' barnacles (four species) are considered to be the most important for consumption. World production already stands at 500 tonnes year-1, but this species has not been cultured to date. Some 'acorn' barnacles are also consumed (seven species), with harvest levels per species that do not exceed 200 tonnes year-1 and selling prices that can reach US$17/kg. 'Acorn' barnacle culture on a world scale is still developing. Nevertheless, production has occurred on a semi-industrial scale; specifically, spat have been collected from the wild and grown in suspended systems. Farming trials have focused on two species of acorn barnacles: Austromegabalanus psittacus (Molina 1782) 'picoroco' in Chile and Megabalanus azoricus (Pilsbry 1916) 'craca' in Portugal. The large-scale production of these crustaceans will depend on the optimization of spat collection from the wild and/or the parallel development of mass production technologies for larvae (hatcheries). In addition, further development will be achieved by opening up new markets for commercialization.