Saving Seafood

Covid-19 drove down landings revenue 22 percent in 2020

December 21, 2021 — An updated analysis of the covid-19 pandemic’s effect on the U.S. fishing and seafood industry shows an across-the-board 22 percent decline in commercial landings revenue during 2020 compared to the previous five-year average, NMFS experts said.

The previously growing aquaculture sector “continued to struggle despite the incremental re-opening of restaurants beginning in May 2020,” while the recreational sector saw a 17 percent decline in trips during 2020, the NMFS report states.

“Our analysis shows that the covid public health crisis created a turning point for the U.S. and the global seafood industry,” agency officials said in releasing the new report, updating the original analysis from January 2021. “It created new long-term challenges to expanding our sustainable domestic seafood sector.”

Food service sales fell 40 percent in the “first quarter of covid-19,” defined as March through May 2020, relative to average sales in the three preceding quarters, the report states.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

COVID-19 Impacts on U.S. Fishing and Seafood Industries Show Broad Declines in 2020

December 17, 2021 — NOAA Fisheries released an updated report, U.S. Seafood Industry and For-Hire Sector Impacts from COVID-19: 2020 in Perspective. It provides an economic assessment of COVID-19 effects on the U.S. fishing and seafood industry in 2020. This includes analyses of the wild harvest, aquaculture, and the recreational charter/for-hire sectors. Our analysis shows that the COVID public health crisis created a turning point for the U.S. and the global seafood industry. It created new long-term challenges to expanding our sustainable domestic seafood sector. The pandemic also created significant challenges for the U.S. recreational for-hire industry.

Read the full story at NOAA Fisheries

 

Bill Reboot: The AQUAA Act is back

December 16, 2021 — In October, a trio of senators reintroduced the AQUAA Act, seeking to revise federal oversight and regulation of large-scale offshore aquaculture. Now the act is paired to dance with a House companion, brought to the floor courtesy of Reps. Stephen Palazzo (R-Miss.) and Edward Case (D-Hawaii) on Tuesday, Dec. 14.

The Advancing the Quality and Understanding of American Aquaculture Act was last introduced by Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) shortly after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed NMFS’s lack of jurisdiction over aquaculture leases in the Gulf of Mexico, upholding a 2018 district court ruling.

“Had Congress intended to give [NMFS] the authority to create an entirely new regulatory permitting scheme for aquaculture operations, it would have said more than ‘harvesting,’” wrote U.S. District Judge Jane Triche Milazzo in the ruling that favored fishing, environmental and public interest groups who filed the suit against the federal government to fight an expansion of NMFS’ reach into aquaculture.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

Study finds aquaculture production vulnerable to climate change

December 16, 2021 — Unchecked global warming could reduce global aquaculture production by as much as 16 percent by 2090, a new study from the University of British Columbia Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries shows.

Marine aquaculture, or mariculture, could double its output by 2050, from a current 30 million metric tons (MT) per year live-weight to 74 million MT, but UBC’s researchers modeled that estimate against climate change scenarios and found climate change to be a more serious threat to the industry than expected.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

Major land-based aquaculture projects near beginning of construction in Maine

December 3, 2021 — Three major land-based aquaculture projects – Atlantic salmon farms planned by Nordic Aquafarms and Whole Oceans, and The Kingfish Company’s yellowtail farm – are all set to initiate construction in coming months in the U.S. state of Maine.

Fredrikstad, Norway-based Nordic Aquafarms won a key legal victory in November 2021 and, in August 2021, it obtained the last permit it needed to begin construction on its land-based salmon farm in Belfast, Maine, U.S.A., where it hopes to grow up to 33,000 metric tons (MT) of salmon annually.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

IFFO’s Brett Glencross: Maximum sustainable yield strategy best management solution

December 2, 2021 — Fisheries management using maximum sustainable yields (MSY) is key to maintaining healthy stocks, according to Brett Glencross, the technical director of IFFO, The Marine Ingredients Organization.

The global fishmeal and fish oil industry has become increasingly sustainable as many of the world’s developed nations have put MSY limits in place, and as an increasing number of seafood companies make the use of sustainably certified ingredients a non-negotiable precondition of their sourcing policies, said Glencross, who was appointed to his position in May 2021.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Researchers aim to turn seafood byproducts into source of nutrition

November 30, 2021 –A research project led by Oregon State University has the potential to reduce food waste by utilizing seafood byproducts as a cheap, high-quality source of protein.

Oregon State has received a $333,777 grant from the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research to study whether protein from byproducts such as fish heads, bones and skin left over after processing can be recovered and used as an ingredient in food or dietary supplements.

The seafood industry uses just 30% to 40% of what it harvests for human consumption, while the rest is either made into fishmeal or discarded in landfills.

“This research exemplifies a ‘no stone unturned’ approach to increasing global food and nutritional security through limiting food waste,” said Lucyna Kurtyka, the senior scientific program director with the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research.

Read the full story at the Daily Astorian

 

Op-ed: Five myths about certified sustainable aquaculture

November 24, 2021 — Declining fisheries and pressures on marine ecosystems around the world have increasingly driven the demand for alternative, more-sustainable sources of seafood. In response, aquaculture has taken off.

Over the past few decades, aquaculture practices have markedly improved. Today’s most-reputable aquaculture operations are specifically designed to curb overfishing, protect wild fish populations and the surrounding natural environment, and produce nutritious foods. Likewise, organizations throughout the seafood supply chain are going to great lengths to ensure that seafood can be traced back to certified sources and is properly handled to deliver healthy, nutritious products to consumers.

Read the full opinion piece at SeafoodSource

Shrimp, finfish aquaculture recovering from COVID-19 impacts

November 23, 2021 — Both shrimp and finfish aquaculture continued to grow globally in 2021, but might experience flattening or slower growth in 2022, according to production surveys conducted by the Global Seafood Alliance.

In a presentation at the final day of the organization’s Global Outlook for Aquaculture Leadership (GOAL) conference on 17 November, Rabobank Senior Analyst Gorjan Nikolik said globally, the aquaculture sector’s production is slowly normalizing after disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

A fish farm next to Acadia? Lobstermen, NPS give a loud ‘no’

November 16, 2021 — The issue is heating up this week in Gouldsboro, a town of 1,700 on the bay. At a special townwide meeting last night, more than 200 voters showed up and overwhelmingly approved a six-month ban on all aquaculture development.

The tensions in this corner of Maine mirror the national debate in Washington and across the country, where supporters view fish farming as a way to improve U.S. food security by producing more locally grown food but opponents worry the cost will be too high for the environment.

Local critics in Gouldsboro have found an ally in the National Park Service, which voiced its objections to a project so close to Acadia. Park officials fear the huge fish pens could chase away visitors, with more noise, damaged air quality and a rise in ocean acidification.

Acadia National Park Superintendent Kevin Schneider, a leading opponent, said the 120-acre project would bring “an industrial factory just 2,000 feet from the park’s boundary.”

“This is a park that’s been here for 105 years,” he said. “The park generates 6,000 local jobs and $400 million that our visitors spend in the local communities here, and so our product here in many respects is the scenery. People are coming for these amazing vistas that you can see from Park Loop Road and from the north ridge of Cadillac that look out to Frenchman Bay, this incredible idyllic location.”

Schneider outlined his complaints in a letter to the Maine Department of Marine Resources, telling state officials that “the scale of the development — the equivalent of 16 football fields — is unprecedented in the United States and incongruous with the existing nature and setting of Frenchman Bay and surrounding lands.”

But Dana Rice, harbormaster and chair of the Gouldsboro board of selectmen, countered he sees promise in the proposal by American Aquafarms. He believes it would revive the town’s waterfront, with the company wanting to use an abandoned sardine plant to process its farm-raised salmon.

“I’m all about economic development,” he said. “And if there’s anything we can do to bring in good jobs, I view it as my responsibility to look at that. It’s a big deal area-wise and economic-wise.

Read the full story at E&E News