You may not think of a bay as a farm.

And Long Island’s baymen may not always have thought of themselves as farmers. But as the aquaculture industry evolves, it has become apparent to more and more baymen that membership in New York Farm Bureau is advantageous.

“Baymen and even (shellfish) farmers are not ‘joiners,’ but they see the benefit of Long Island Farm Bureau, and a decent percentage have joined,” says Karen Rivara, owner of Suffolk’s Aeros Cultured Oyster Company and secretary of the regional Farm Bureau.

Rivara also is president of an industry group called the East End Marine Farmers Association, and each time she attends a meeting of that organization she brings along Farm Bureau applications.

“We’re a small organization, maybe 25 members, and I would say somewhere in the neighborhood of eight people have joined,” Rivara said. “More will join and become active in Farm Bureau.”

There are two reasons:

First, Farm Bureau has helped promote aquaculture, the practice of cultivating marine life — especially shellfish — growing them on the sea floor and harvesting them.

Second, more baymen are becoming aquaculturists. “Traditionally, baymen go out and find shellfish in the wild,” Rivara explained.

“Recently, a lot of baymen have become shellfish farmers because the wild product is not out there in a reliable way.”

It is far more reliable to utilize aquaculture techniques first developed on Long Island in the early 20th century, Rivara said. In those days, shellfish seed sets were acquired in Connecticut and brought to the island’s bays for transplantation.

“In the 1950s, the viability of the natural sets in Connecticut started to decline,” she said. “That’s when people developed marine hatcheries.”

Large companies like Rivara’s or Frank M. Flower & Sons Co. in Bayville now run their own marine hatcheries.

Using salt water pumped into their landbound nursery, the companies grow oysters, clams and bay scallops until they are large enough to transplant onto the ocean floor.

“The third phase comes when you have something an inch long (for oysters),” Rivara said. “You put them in a cage or plant them on the bottom (of the sea).”

Back when the industry had access to reliable seed sources from Connecticut, shellfish farming was a major industry on the island, Rivara said.

“In Greenpoint alone, there were 300 people employed,” she said. “Then you had the decline in the natural set. A lot of companies went out of business. Some developed their own hatcheries.

“Of the original big companies, Flower is the only one left. They’ll plant 50 million oyster seeds every year. They have that kind of production capability with their hatchery.” New York’s aquaculture industry is relatively small in the national scheme of things.

According to the latest figures available from the USDA, it is a $1 billion a year industry nationally. The most active state, Mississippi, generated $249 million in sales in 2005, the last year numbers are available; New York accounted for $8.9 million.

On the other hand, New York has one of the nation’s fastest growing aquaculture industries.

National sales figures rose just 12 percent from 1998 to 2005. New York’s industry ballooned by nearly 400 percent in the same period.

Long Island Farm Bureau has shown aquaculturists the power of the “Voice of Agriculture” on a couple of occasions.

Two years ago, LIFB Executive Director Joseph Gergela went to Washington, D.C., to testify at a Congressional hearing to consider placing the eastern oyster on the Endangered Species list. Later that year, the petition asking to place the animal on the list was withdrawn.

At about the same time, LIFB worked with state Assemblyman Thomas DiNapoli, D-Great Neck, and Fred W. Thiele Jr., RSag Harbor, and Sen. Kenneth P. LaVelle, RPort Jefferson, to pass the state’s Shellfish Aquaculture Leasing Program.

“It was a bill to allow a leasing program in the Peconic and Gardiners bays,” Gergela said. “The reason being there was a law that was antiquated, and there was a lot of private land in bays that would be great for aquaculture.

“This corrected the antiquated law so now there’s a process at least to get access to public land for the purpose of doing aquaculture. Farm Bureau was absolutely responsible for its passage. Karen (Rivara) and her colleagues did a great job.”

Rivara said the process in Suffolk County is going well. And the leases are going to play a large role in helping aquaculture develop in the state.

“The baymen are becoming farmers because they need something to catch when they go out. The leasing program is supposed to address the changing needs of the industry,” she said.

“As long as shellfish farmers and the Long Island Farm Bureau stay involved in the process, we should have a nice framework with which to work and continue to have growth of the industry.”