Although mussel farming requires little capital investment, is suffers from laggard production because of low value, little market demand, poor sanitary quality, and occurrence of red tides. Based on the website of Mussels Philippines, mussel production in the country totaled 25,700 metric tons (MT) in 2012, before going down to 22,900 MT in 2013 and 18,800 MT in 2014. Aside from the requisite economic analysis, Secretary Fortunato de la Peña of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) particularly cited the behavior of growers and farmers as a significant factor for higher productivity of mussels.

Santiagudo, E. R. (2018, November 1). DOST trains sights on slumping mussel sector. The Daily Guardian, pp. 7, 11.