There are not many jobs that pay you to lie down for hours, but abalone farming is one of them.

To be fair, it is not quite as restful as it sounds.

Workers may lie prone on a rolling platform, but their hands are working non-stop harvesting stock out of the shallow tanks.

Flynn Taylor is the production manager at a massive abalone farm near Portland on the Victorian coast.

Yumbah Aquaculture is Australia's biggest onshore abalone farming operation. ( Landline: Kerry Staight )

"When we're on the harvester for a few hours at a time we can get to know each other pretty well and have some interesting conversations," Mr Taylor said.

The facility is part of Yumbah Aquaculture — Australia's biggest onshore abalone farming operation.

There are 6 million abalone, which are basically marine snails, under this roof.

To the untrained eye they all look pretty similar, but these workers can get quite attached and even name some of them.

Workers are on the harvester for a few hours at a time. ( Landline: Tony Hill )

"There's an abalone out there that has a very light-coloured shell and Joel, one of our staff members here, is blonde so it got called Joel," Mr Taylor said.

"If they (the workers) need to work in the processing area they sometimes don't like that because they've been growing these abalone for up to three years sometimes so it can be a little bit heartbreaking."

The farm grows two types of abalone — green lipped and tiger.

Mr Taylor says despite their sedate appearance, they have quite distinct personalities.

"The (green lipped) are very well mannered, they're calm abalone, they don't crawl around very much and they sit where we want them to sit," he said.

"Whereas the tiger, they're a little bit crazier, they tend to crawl out of their tanks sometimes."

No one is more passionate about these marine snails than farm manager Tim Rudge.

Sorry, this video has expired Abalone moving at onshore abalone farm Yumbah Aquaculture

He comes from a family of wild abalone divers, but after studying aquaculture at university he decided to invest in onshore abalone farming when the industry was in its infancy.

"Over the journey so many people have told us that we'd never do it," he said.

"I've had far more people say you'll go broke … they'll never buy your farmed abalone."

Back from the brink

Things looked pretty bleak in 2006 when a herpes-like virus infected his farm just when it was fully established.

The disease, which spread through several farms and local wild stocks, killed half of his abalone.

With so little known about the virus back then, the company made the decision to destroy the stock that had survived and clean the place out.

"Destroying stock, it's a horrible thing to have to do," Mr Rudge said.

The farmed abalone sells for around $40 per kilogram. ( Landline: Tony Hill )

While he considered walking away from the business, support from investors and a desire to turn his life's work into a success prompted Mr Rudge to start again.

But this time the company decided to spread the risk and not have all its eggs in one basket.

It merged with a West Australian company that had a farm at Port Lincoln in South Australia and then went on to buy other struggling farms in South Australia and Tasmania.

Last year those farms united under a new name — Yumbah Aquaculture.

With an annual production of around 600 tonnes, the owners say it is the biggest abalone farming operation in the southern hemisphere, with 70 per cent of what it produces exported.

Mr Rudge was forced to start from scratch when the disease infected the entire farm. ( Landline: Kerry Staight )

"Most of our stuff sells for between $35 and $55 a kilo (in shell), so probably the average is around $40," said Tim Rudge.

"There's a lot of people in the wild sector that would like to be selling their product for $40 a kilo."

And after encountering so many sceptics and surviving in an industry that has burnt many, he is savouring those farm gate returns.

"It's all been bigger and better, with the hardships along the way, than what I ever dreamt," he said.

Be watching Landline this Sunday at noon.