To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many (a) licensed and (b) unlicensed oyster farms exist in the United Kingdom; and how many oysters are produced in each category per annum. [37476]

Oysters may be harvested from wild fisheries or cultivated on farms. All oyster farms must be registered for shellfish disease control purposes. There are 153 registered oyster farms in the UK. UK production of farmed oysters sold for the table amounts to some 950 tonnes per annum. Around 538 tonnes of oysters were landed from wild fisheries in 1994.