GOMESA Application Details

Internal Project Number: 281426
1. Title of Project: Establishing Mississippi's Off-Bottom Oyster Aquaculture Cooperative with a shared mobile processing and grading hub
2. Location of Project: Thad Cochran Marine Aquaculture Center, University of Southern Mississippi, Gulf Coast Research Laboratory, Cedar Point Campus. Jackson County, Mississippi
3. Requesting Organization: University of Southern Mississippi
4a. Name: Erica Kennedy
4b. Position
4c. Phone Number: 601-266-4119
4d. Fax Number
4e. Address Line 1: 118 College Drive #5157
4e. Address Line 2
4e. City, State Zip: Hattiesburg, Mississippi
4f. Email: ora-pam@usm.edu
5. FundingRequested: $907,204
Awarded Amount:
6. Other State or Federal Funding Sources: No
7a. Amount of Additional Funds
7b. Source of Additional Funds
8. Total Project Funds Amount: $907,204
9. Project Description/Overview: TCMAC proposes to organize the state's first off-bottom oyster producer cooperative among Mississippi's OBOA farmers, under Mississippi's Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Associations Act (Miss. Code Ann. §§ 79-19-1 et seq.), and equip it with the shared processing infrastructure it needs to expand. This gives Eagle Point Oyster Co. (Matthew Mayfield), Holy Ground Oyster Co. (Thomas Piecuch), and Two Crackers Oyster Co. (Mark Havard) a durable, member-owned structure, rather than three independently operating farms, to coordinate quality standards, pool inventory, and grow membership.The shared equipment, cold storage and processing trailers, a tumbler, an open flatbed, and an oyster water chiller in Year 1, plus a vision-based grader and the Blue Trace tagging system in Year 2, lets the cooperative move more volume through harvest, grading, and preparation than any founding member could alone. As with TCMAC's companion wet storage proposal, every hub component is trailer-mounted so it can relocate to TCMAC's Cedar Point facility ahead of hurricanes, protecting the infrastructure and keeping disruption minimal.Subcontractor and Cooperative Formation: TCMAC will subcontract with Deer Island Oyster Alliance, LLC, the same three farms partnering on the wet storage proposal. The LLC's members will serve as founding members and the hub's first commercial users, responsible for filing Articles of Association and bylaws, establishing governance and quality standards, developing the cooperative's brand and website, setting up recordkeeping, and training on hub equipment. TCMAC will provide the technical assistance to stand up the cooperative itself, including facilitating formation meetings and confirming MDAC eligibility.Cooperative Meetings: The cooperative will hold bi-yearly meetings beginning in Year 1, focused first on governance and administrative setup, then an outreach session at the end of Year 2 inviting other Mississippi OBOA farmers to join, and by Year 3 meetings open to all members.Site: The hub will be sited in Jackson County, Mississippi, on the water and centrally located to the Deer Island Oyster Aquaculture Park (DIOAP), the same site used in the companion wet storage proposal. A specific site will not be finalized until funding is awarded. This project is a standalone GOMESA application, not dependent on the wet storage proposal's award, but if both are complements of the other.
10. Project Goals/Objectives: 1. Initiate and formally organize a Mississippi off-bottom oyster producer cooperative under the Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Associations Act (Miss. Code Ann. §§ 79-19-1 et seq.) with Eagle Point Oyster Co., Holy Ground Oyster Co., and Two Crackers Oyster Co. as founding members. Articles of Association will be drafted and filed, bylaws will be adopted, and a governance structure open to future OBOA farmers will be established. 2. Hold bi-yearly cooperative meetings beginning in Year 1, progressing from founding-member governance and administrative work in Year 1 to industry outreach and recruitment in Year 2 and fully inclusive membership meetings in Year 3. 3. Construct a three-unit mobile processing hub (a refrigerated cold storage semi-trailer, an air-conditioned processing semi-trailer, and a flatbed tumbler unit) as the shared infrastructure that enables the cooperative to increase harvesting, processing, and cold-holding capacity beyond what any founding member could support individually. 4. Increase the cooperative's combined harvesting and processing volume by removing the equipment bottleneck that currently limits how much product each founding farm can grade, wash, prepare, and hold for sale on its own. 5. Build the cooperative's market presence by giving it the consistent volume, grading, and product quality that wholesale buyers and distributors require but that no single founding farm can reliably supply alone. 6. Achieve compliance with applicable NSSP/ISSC post-harvest handling and food safety standards and secure the corresponding MDMR permitting needed to operate the hub for commercial processing. 7. Establish and validate a mobile storm-response protocol for the processing hub, that relocates all three units from the shore-based operational site to TCMAC's Cedar Point facility ahead of storm events where TCMAC staff will maintain continuity of processing operations to minimize operational interruptions of the cooperative. 8. Transfer operational and governance capability to the cooperative's founding members in Year 1 to 2. Expand the cooperative’s membership, harvesting volume, and processing throughput in Years 2 to 3.
11. Which of the following authorized uses set forth in the GOMESA Act does this project fall under?

(A) Projects and activities for the purpose of coastal protection, including conservation, coastal restoration, hurricane protection, and infrastructure directly affected by coastal wetlands losses: Yes: As with the companion wet storage proposal, this project provides hurricane-resilient infrastructure protecting a natural-resource-dependent industry. The mobile, trailer-mounted design of the cold storage unit, processing unit, and tumbler exists specifically so that post-harvest processing capacity is not lost or destroyed during hurricanes, and so that industry recovery after a storm is faster.

(B) Mitigation of damage to fish, wildlife, or natural resources.: Yes: This project mitigates economic and resource-management damage from storm-related loss of the processing infrastructure the cooperative depends on to grow its harvesting and processing volume. A hurricane can destroy fixed-site grading, washing, and cold-storage equipment outright, spoiling already-harvested product and eliminating processing capacity for the rest of a season. By making the tumbler, processing, and cold storage mobile and relocatable to TCMAC's facility, this project protects that infrastructure and the cooperative's ability to keep growing rather than losing ground after every storm. Organizing the farmers into a formal cooperative further mitigates resource risk by giving the industry a durable, collectively to sustain growth.

(C) Implementation of a federally-approved marine, coastal, or conservation management plan.

(D) Mitigation of the impact of Outer Continental Shelf activities through funding of onshore infrastructure projects.

12. Project Timetable/Milestones: Year 1 • Confirm with MDAC that off-bottom oyster aquaculture qualifies as an "agricultural product" under Miss. Code Ann. § 79-19-3 and draft Articles of Association and bylaws for the new cooperative with the three founding members. • File Articles of Association with the Mississippi Secretary of State to formally organize the cooperative. • Finalize site selection among candidate Jackson County waterfront properties and execute a site-use agreement. • Execute a subcontract with Deer Island Oyster Alliance, LLC. • Hold two bi-yearly cooperative meetings among the three founding members, focused on establishing governing documents, website, brand, and administrative systems. • Acquire the two refrigerated semi-trailers (one cold storage, one processing), the mechanical tumbler, and the open flatbed trailer for grading and washing oysters ahead of harvest. • Acquire the oyster water chiller to pre-cool incoming city/bay water for cooling harvested oysters. • Outfit and install the cold storage trailer, the processing trailer, and the tumbler unit on the flatbed. • Begin marketing and website development: trademark brand and logo development, website domain registration, and building the cooperative's website. • Acquire a computer/tablet system for logging and tracking cooperative members, sales, and other recordkeeping needs. • Begin work toward applicable NSSP/ISSC post-harvest handling compliance and MDMR permitting for on-site processing. Year 2 • Complete regulatory approval/permitting for hub operations. • Adopt cooperative-wide quality and grading standards and begin operational use of the hub by the cooperative's founding members. • Outfit the processing trailer with the vision- and water-based oyster grader ("Alibaba Grader") for automated grading and counting of harvestable oysters. • Adopt the Blue Trace tagging system to support traceability of product moving through the hub. • Hold two bi-yearly cooperative meetings; hold the second meeting of the year as an informational outreach session, inviting other Mississippi OBOA industry farmers to learn about the cooperative and decide whether to join. • Conduct at least one storm-relocation exercise/drill, moving all units to TCMAC's Cedar Point facility, refining staffing and handoff protocols. • If the companion wet storage project is also funded, co-locate the wet storage trailer at the same site and integrate joint storm-relocation procedures across all units, with the cooperative governing shared use of both systems. • Begin cost-center billing structure for hub use. Year 3 • Open cooperative membership and hub access to additional Mississippi OBOA industry farmers beyond the three founding members. • Hold two bi-yearly cooperative meetings that include all cooperative members, founding and newly admitted. • Continue routine maintenance and equipment servicing. • Evaluate and report on cooperative governance functioning and storm-response performance (number of relocation events, continuity of processing operations, reduction in storm-driven downtime and product loss). • Assess expansion/replication potential for additional processing hub units and continued cooperative membership growth.
13. Project Timing: Short-term
14. Current status of architectural/engineering plans & specifications for this project (if applicable):: Other N/A Funds Not Budgeted

15. In what way does this project meet the goals and objectives of the Department of Marine Resources, which includes enhancing, protecting and conserving the marine interest of Mississippi for present and future generations?: TCMAC's cooperative formation and mobile processing hub project directly supports MDMR's mission to enhance, protect, and conserve the marine interests of Mississippi for present and future generations by: • Building lasting industry organization and self-governance by using Mississippi's existing agricultural cooperative statute to formally organize OBOA farmers for the first time, giving the industry a durable structure that persists beyond any single grant cycle; • Increasing harvesting and processing capacity for the industry by removing the equipment bottleneck that currently limits how much product founding members can grade, process, and hold for sale, directly supporting MDMR's interest in growing the volume and value of Mississippi's oyster harvest; • Building market presence for Mississippi oysters by giving the cooperative the consistent volume and product quality that wholesale buyers and distributors require, expanding market access beyond what individual farms can achieve alone; • Improving traceability and food-safety documentation through adoption of the Blue Trace tagging system and vision-based grading technology, giving MDMR and buyers alike a clearer chain of custody for product moving through the hub; • Protecting the infrastructure that supports that growth against storm-driven loss so a hurricane costs the cooperative processing downtime rather than the market gains it has built; • Strengthening resilience of marine-resource-dependent infrastructure consistent with MDMR's interest in coastal industries that can withstand and recover quickly from hurricanes; • Complementing MDMR's broader investment in oyster industry infrastructure, including the companion mobile wet storage project, by building toward an integrated, storm-mobile site, governed by the new cooperative, that supports continued mgrowth in harvest volume, processing capacity, and market reach.

16. Estimated Years To Completion: 3
17. Estimated Completion Date: 6/30/2030

Budget:

Salaries,Wages, Fringe: $238,199
Travel: $6,264
Architecture & Engineering
Legal
Consulting
Construction
Site Work
Equipment
Indirects: $135,721
Other: $527,020
Total: $907,204


Application Submission Date: 08/28/2026
Fiscal Year: 2028
Project Status
Application Status: Submitted
Meets Criteria
Internal Notes:
Attachments:: https://gomesa.dmr.ms.gov/attachments/GOMESA_1426_Attachment.pdf
Hyperlink:: Attachments

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