Saving Seafood

Oyster Farmers Who Feared Going Broke Brace for a ‘Bonkers’ Summer

June 14, 2021 — A year ago, oyster growers who farm New Jersey’s marshy coastal inlets and tidal flats were fighting for survival.

Restaurants were shut down by the pandemic, and the oysters they had nurtured for two years were growing past their prime. The pricey seafood that should have been sold in raw bars or served at weddings was instead submerged in cages and racks in Barnegat and Delaware Bays, crowding out a younger crop of oysters.

“When Covid hit, that market disappeared,” said Tim Dillingham, executive director of the American Littoral Society, a nonprofit dedicated to the study and conservation of marine life and habitats.

Unable to pay for boat fuel or the following year’s seed, some small aquaculture farmers in New York and New Jersey, struggling to revitalize what was once the country’s pre-eminent oyster market, braced for the worst.

But a year later, against long odds, the industry is poised for a summertime boom.

Read the full story at The New York Times

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation assisting sustainable aquaculture in developing markets

June 11, 2021 — Fish is climbing the global agenda for food and nutritional security, and the seafood sector has the scope to provide much more essential protein as long as industry and small-scale producers can find ways to come together and create shared value, according to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Explaining the Gates Foundation’s interest in fish at this year’s North Atlantic Seafood Form (NASF), its deputy director for agriculture development, Samuel Thevasagayam, said that its vision is “a world where every person has the opportunity to live a healthy, productive life.” The foundation aims to achieve this through its six different divisions of global health, global policy and advocacy, gender equality, global growth and opportunity, global development, and U.S. programs that focus on education.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Eight aquaculture projects slated to receive USD 11 million through NOAA grant program

June 9, 2021 — NOAA Fisheries has recommended more than USD 11 million (EUR 9 million) for 43 projects under the 2021 Saltonstall-Kennedy (S-K) Competitive Grants Program – eight of which are aquaculture initiatives.

The eight aquaculture-related projects recommended by NOAA include a number of scientific research projects examining topics ranging from pathogens to work on monetizing industry byproducts. Of the projects recommended for funding, five of them are examining subjects relevant to shellfish and bivalves.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Murkowski and Colleagues Stand Up for Wild-Caught Salmon

June 8, 2021 — The following was released by The Office of Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK):

U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) reintroduced the Genetically Engineered Salmon Labeling Act, which will allow consumers to make informed decisions when purchasing salmon. The bill works to ensure that any genetically engineered (GE) salmon products sold in the U.S. are clearly labeled “genetically engineered” in the market name. This requirement would apply to the entire lineage of salmon modified via recombinant DNA technology. The bill is co-sponsored by U.S. Senators Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), and Jeff Merkley (D-OR).

“It is absolutely essential that consumers be fully informed about what they are buying and feeding their families—especially when it comes to purchasing a genetically engineered salmon product. As an Alaskan who knows the tremendous benefits of eating healthy, wild Alaskan salmon, it’s imperative that Americans have the information to make that choice. When you splice DNA from another animal and combine it with farmed salmon, you are essentially creating a new species, and I have serious concerns with that. If we are going to allow this fake fish to be sold in stores, there must be clear labeling. We owe it to American consumers to ensure that any labeling of GE salmon is clear, effective, and understandable.”

Background: Through her role on the Appropriations Committee, Senator Murkowski has included language in previous appropriation bills to prevent the introduction of GE salmon to the U.S. market until the completion of a consumer study to determine the effectiveness of USDA’s labeling guidelines for bioengineered foods. USDA’s labeling guidelines did not require mandatory labeling of GE salmon, but instead allowed producers to use QR codes or 1-800 numbers for more information, which Senator Murkowski stressed were inadequate. Senator Murkowski’s years-long fight to ensure that any salmon that is genetically engineered be clearly labeled goes back to November 2015, when the FDA made the decision to approve GE salmon for human consumption.

Global Seafood Alliance launches Best Seafood Practices standard

June 3, 2021 — The Global Seafood Alliance (GSA) – formerly the Global Aquaculture Alliance – has announced the launch of Best Seafood Practices (BSP), a third-party certification standard for wild-capture fisheries.

The new standard, GSA said, will be the world’s only standard that links responsible wild capture fisheries, Responsible Fishing Vessel Standard (RFVS)-certified vessels, and Seafood Processing Plant Standard (SPS)-certified facilities through the Chain of Custody standard. The new standard will be the equivalent of the organization’s Best Aquaculture Practices third-party aquaculture certification program.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Applications for aquatic farming in Alaska drop due to pandemic, and kelp is favored over shellfish

June 2, 2021 — Alaska interest in growing kelp continues to outpace that of shellfish, based on applications filed during the annual window that runs from January through April.

The number of 2021 applicants for aquatic farming dropped to just seven, reversing a steady upward trend that reached 16 last year, likely due to a “wait and see” approach stemming from the pandemic.

“We had people whose personal situations changed because of COVID. They became home-schooling parents, things like that, where they can no longer dedicate the time they thought they were going to have out on a farm site,” said Michell Morris, permit coordinator at the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game. The agency partners with the Dept. of Natural Resources, which leases the lands where aquatic farming takes place.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

MAINE: ‘Next-gen’ tech or industrial destruction? Salmon farm proposal advances, but groups protest

June 2, 2021 — The Department of Marine Resources has accepted applications for consideration of two lease sites in Frenchman Bay where a Norwegian company wants to grow Atlantic salmon.

But the applications from American Aquafarms were immediately met with opposition from several groups of local residents.

“We are opposed to growing 30,000 metric tons of salmon annually, covering over 100 acres of Frenchman Bay,” Kathleen Rybarz, president of Friends of Frenchman Bay, said in a news release.

“One cannot overstate the destructive impact of this large-scale proposal on a bay that already strives to balance multiple fisheries, heavy recreational use, cruise ship visitors and increasing ocean warming.”

Read the full story at MaineBiz

MAINE: Mussel farm sees potential in scallops

June 1, 2021 — In mid-May, Alex de Koning climbed down into the hold of the Stewardship, the former military landing craft that he and his family have used for years to help grow mussels in Frenchman Bay, and sat at what looked like a giant sewing machine.   

He grabbed a pair of scallops that had just been pulled out of the farm’s nets, lined up the small notches near the bivalves’ hinge and stepped on a foot pedal.  

A drill bit dropped down and pierced through both shells. When the bit pulled up, a black pin followed back up through the holes and attached the scallops to a rope. Then a claw pulled the rope a few inches, setting up a spot for another pair of scallops to be attached.   

This small three-act play took only a couple of seconds but could revolutionize the industry in Maine and cement scallops alongside its more famous farmed counterparts in the state.   

What the machine does is quite simple, but it mechanizes what would otherwise be an incredibly labor-intensive process. It also speeds up the farming to a point where it could become more economically viable for sea farmers as well as other members of the working waterfront who might be looking to diversify their work during turbulent times.  

Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander

Genetically modified salmon head to US dinner plates

May 28, 2021 — The inaugural harvest of genetically modified salmon began this week after the pandemic delayed the sale of the first such altered animal to be cleared for human consumption in the United States, company officials said.

Several tons of salmon, engineered by biotech company AquaBounty Technologies Inc., will now head to restaurants and away-from-home dining services — where labeling as genetically engineered is not required — in the Midwest and along the East Coast, company CEO Sylvia Wulf said.

Thus far, the only customer to announce it is selling the salmon is Samuels and Son Seafood, a Philadelphia-based seafood distributor.

AquaBounty has raised its faster-growing salmon at an indoor aquaculture farm in Albany, Indiana. The fish are genetically modified to grow twice as fast as wild salmon, reaching market size — 8 to 12 pounds (3.6 to 5.4 kilograms) — in 18 months rather than 36.

The Massachusetts-based company originally planned to harvest the fish in late 2020. Wulf attributed delays to reduced demand and market price for Atlantic salmon spurred by the pandemic.

“The impact of COVID caused us to rethink our initial timeline … no one was looking for more salmon then,” she said. “We’re very excited about it now. We’ve timed the harvest with the recovery of the economy, and we know that demand is going to continue to increase.”

Read the full story at the Associated Press

Salmon virus has spread from the Atlantic to the Pacific

May 27, 2021 — Wild Chinook salmon are more likely to be infected with Piscine orthoreovirus (PRV) the closer they are to salmon farms. This finding indicates that farms are spreading the virus to wild salmon – a theory that is further supported by the results of a recent genomic analysis.

Dr. Gideon Mordecai is a viral ecologist at the University of British Columbia who led the study.

“Both our genomic and epidemiological methods independently came to the same conclusion, that salmon farms act as a source and amplifier of PRV transmission,” said Dr. Mordecai. “Because separate lines of independent evidence all point to the same answer, we’re confident in our finding.”

In collaboration with researchers from the Strategic Salmon Health Initiative, the UBC team traced the origins of PRV to Atlantic salmon farms in Norway and found that the virus is now widespread across salmon farms in British Columbia.

After sequencing 86 PRV genomes, the researchers estimated that the lineage of the virus that is now present in the Northeast Pacific diverged from the virus in the Atlantic Ocean approximately 30 years ago. This suggests that the introduction of PRV to British Columbia, and the infection of wild Pacific salmon, is a relatively recent phenomenon.

Read the full story at Earth.com