Saving Seafood

Program will train aquaculture workforce in Maine as industry grows

May 12, 2021 — Seafood farms popping up all along the coast have Maine’s aquaculture industry primed for a boom and two organizations in the state are preparing to meet its workforce needs with a first-of-its-kind training program.

The Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center and Washington County Community College received a $500,000 grant to be paid out over three years from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture to develop an aquaculture-specific training program at the college.

The program will aim to meet the growing need for tech-savvy, skilled workers in four of the largest aquaculture subsets: land-based recirculating aquaculture, marine fin-fish aquaculture, cold-water coastal shellfish aquaculture and marine macroalgae aquaculture. Students will graduate with either a workforce training certificate or an associate’s degree.

“Aquaculture is the fastest-growing form of agriculture in the U.S.,” said Chris Davis, executive director of the Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

State bill would tackle development pressures along Maine coast

May 7, 2021 — Divisive opinions around Maine’s growing aquaculture industry, particularly a proposed salmon farming operation in Frenchman Bay, are driving lawmakers to consider studying coastal development in general.

The Legislature’s Marine Resource Committee held a public hearing Tuesday on LD 1211, “Resolve, To Create the Study Group To Research Balancing Development and Conservation in Maine’s Coastal Waters and Submerged Lands,” introduced by state Rep. Lynne Williams, D-District 135.

A goal of the bill is to establish regional units functioning in individual bay areas, composed of municipal representatives and consultants, that would be able to provide input into how each bay is used.

The resolve would establish the group “to address current system deficiencies in the regulation of the state’s coastal waters and submerged lands.”

Read the full story at MaineBiz

PETA, Seaspiracy producer call on Biden to reverse offshore aquaculture executive order

May 4, 2021 — People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and “Seaspiracy” producer Kip Andersen are calling on U.S. President Joe Biden to reverse a Trump administration executive order permitting the growth of offshore aquaculture operations and practices.

PETA and Andersen said in a letter to Biden that Executive Order 13921 on Promoting American Seafood Competitiveness and Economic Growth allows for the “the proliferation of damaging and deadly offshore fish-factory farms,” which “cause substantial suffering to the farmed fish.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

SEBASTIAN BELLE: Time to stand up for the working waterfront

April 30, 2021 — Let’s get the record straight. Fishermen and sea farmers have been coexisting along the coast of Maine for many years; we all make our living on the sea. The Maine Aquaculture Association was established in 1977. We depend on Maine’s clean ocean and healthy ecosystems to produce the world’s best seafood. We preserve Maine’s working waterfronts by building and supporting marine businesses.

Maine fishermen apply for permits or licenses to harvest a public resource. Sea farmers apply for leases and a series of licenses and permits to access public space and operate their farms raising mussels, oysters, kelp and salmon. No aquaculture leases issued in Maine grant the exclusive use of an area; they all allow for varying degrees of multiple use. Current law prohibits the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) from issuing a lease to a farmer if it does not comply with a series of criteria designed to protect the environment, prevent conflicts with other user groups, prevent interference with navigation and prevent obstruction of riparian landowners’ access to the water. In addition, all aquaculture leases issued in the state of Maine are a contract between the farmer and the state and include a series of conditions that, if violated, trigger the revocation of that lease. To be clear, it is illegal for DMR to issue a lease if it conflicts with an existing commercial fishery. In other words, existing fishing grounds are prioritized over proposed aquaculture sites. The lobbyists want the state Legislature to study this system, costing the state and businesses time and money. This is an attack by a few landowners on the many who work on the water. There have been some contentious ideas, and those who have been through this in the past know we have a system to verify that any development is of benefit to all.

This recent well-funded lobbyist effort by landowners to prevent us from making a living on the waterfront threatens all those who make a living on the sea. The real opposition to lease applications is coming from a few wealthy coastal landowners who do not want to see a working waterfront. These “not in my backyard” folks and their highly paid consultants and lawyers pressure legislators to radically change the rules and regulations that apply to aquaculture. Those rules and regulations are the product of 40 years of public discussion and legislative deliberation. Maine’s aquaculture leasing and environmental monitoring laws are the gold standard; delegations of fishermen, regulators and politicians often visit Maine from other states and countries to see how we manage the aquaculture sector.

Read the full opinion piece at Mount Desert Islander

National seafood intel to offer competitive advantage for Maine businesses

April 30, 2021 — Data on national seafood sales is expected to give Maine’s aquaculture and seafood businesses a competitive edge by helping them identify the best prospects for market expansion.

Coastal Enterprises Inc. has acquired competitive national seafood industry sales information as part of its Maine Seafood Marketing Initiative, a pilot effort to establish a state seafood marketing association promoting all of Maine’s seafood products, according to a news release.

The nonprofit is sharing the data with Maine’s aquaculture and seafood industries.

“This intel gives Maine companies a competitive advantage over out-of-state producers and distributers,” Nick Branchina, director of CEI’s Fisheries and Aquaculture Program and principal of the Maine Seafood Marketing Initiative, said in the release.

Read the full story at MaineBiz

Norwegian technology tests Maine waters

April 29, 2021 — In Norway, one of the world’s top two producers of farmed salmon, raising fish at sea in closed cages has been tested for nearly a decade. Multiple contained floating systems are in commercial use there now after yielding positive test results. Whether such farms’ scale, though, fit Frenchman Bay, where a ferry, tour boats, fishing vessels and pleasure craft already coexist, is among many questions sparked by American Aquafarms’ plan to grow fish there on a large scale.

On Norway’s northwest coast, beginning in 2016,  the “Eco-cage” system that American Aquafarms’ proposes for Frenchman Bay was tested by its producer, Ecomerden AS, at the salmon farm Sulefisk in the westernmost Solund Isles archipelago for a two-year period. Compared to open-net pens used in Maine, the closed, floating system fared better. In 2018, Ecomerden AS General Manager Jan-Erik Kyrkjebø reported sea lice, a parasite that feeds on salmon skin and accounts for much fish mortality, had ceased as an issue and predators failed to penetrate the ocean pens’ strong, flexible membrane sack. Kyrkjebø also said the Norwegian company’s closed system boosted the salmon’s survival rate and reduced the fish’s grow-out period leading to harvest, according to Undercurrent News, a London-based, independent online journal focused on the global seafood market.

Earlier this year, Ecomerden, whose Eco-cage is proposed for Frenchman Bay, sold its semi-closed system for commercial use to the Norwegian salmon farm Eide Fjordbruk in the southwestern fjord town of Eikelandsosen. Another Norwegian fish farmer, Osland Havbruk, is using the Eco-cage to raise salmon in Norway’s largest and deepest fjord, Sognefjord, on the west coast, according to the Norwegian journal SalmonBusiness. However, Ecomerden’s Eco-cages are not yet being used commercially elsewhere in the world, according to American Aquafarms Vice President Eirik Jors.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

The salmon you buy in the future may be farmed on land

April 29, 2021 — In a series of indoor tanks 40 miles south west of Miami, Florida, five million fish are swimming in circles a very long way from home.

The fish in question are Atlantic salmon, which are far more typically found in the cold waters of Norway’s fjords or Scotland’s lochs.

As the species is not native to Florida, and would be unable to cope with the state’s tropical heat, the water tanks are kept well chilled, and housed in a vast, air-conditioned and heavily insulated warehouse-like building.

The facility, called the Bluehouse, opened its first phase last year, and intends to be the world’s largest land-based fish farm.

Targeting an initial production of 9,500 metric tonnes of fish per year, its owner – Atlantic Sapphire – plans to increase that to 222,000 tonnes by 2031, enough to provide 41% of current US annual salmon consumption, or a billion meals.

The company is at the forefront of a growing movement in Europe, Asia and the US towards land-based, indoor aquaculture. But what could it mean for traditional sea-based salmon farms, and most importantly – what about the welfare of the fish?

Read the full story at BBC

Sustainability, communication and collaboration are key for the future of aquafeed

April 28, 2021 — The Marine Ingredients Organization (IFFO) hosted a webinar with all members of the organization with the latest insights from nearly 20 speakers on the global fishmeal and fish oil markets, in-depth country presentations and new research insights.

The panel looked at salmon and shrimp market trends. All panelists, from Allan Cooper (Vitapro S.A.) to Therese Log Bergjord (Skretting), Aisla Jones (Co-op), Odd Eliasen (Havsbrun) and Jonathan Banks, underlined that sustainability, transparency and communication with consumers are central to the future of aquafeed. Documented facts and figures on seafood’s carbon footprint, nutritional properties of fishmeal and fish oil and sustainable harvesting of fish stocks demonstrate aquaculture’s success story.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, a major shift has happened in the shrimp sector mainly, with some changes occurring also in the salmon industry. Supply chains have adapted to allow for a move to retail to be made. Digital transformation, through analytics, will be the way forward to improve service, traceability and feed efficiency.

Read the full story at Aquafeed.com

Maine farm that uses fish poop to grow crops year-round is expanding

April 27, 2021 — A Lisbon farm plans to add 500,000 square feet of greenhouse operations over the next six years and defy doubters who don’t believe its style of year-round growing, which uses fish waste to fertilize greens, can be scaled into a large commercial operation.

Springworks Farm, the largest aquaponics farm in Maine and one of the largest in the United States, aims to be a local organic alternative to lettuce and other greens trucked from California and Arizona to the East Coast.

It already produces one million heads of lettuce and up to 60,000 pounds of tilapia each year, and plans to have its third greenhouse completed in May. The technique uses less water and can produce up to 20 times more lettuce in an acre as conventional soil gardening, according to Springworks.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Native American leader that pushed Washington aquaculture development dies in car wreck

April 26, 2021 — Washington state’s Kurt Grinnell, a Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe council member for 16-plus years, died in a single-vehicle wreck Tuesday, April 20, on Mount Pleasant Road in Port Angeles.

Grinnell, 57, a Port Angeles resident, was the tribe’s aquaculture manager and served on the tribe’s hunting and fishing committee for 33 years after being elected to the council in October 2004, reported the local news site Sequim Gazette.

Grinnell was also CEO of Jamestown Seafood, which opened in 2016 and harvests oysters and geoduck and produces oyster seed for commercial sale.

He had previously worked on projects with Canadian salmon giant Cooke that included a joint venture with the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe to produce sterile all-female native steelhead trout at a defunct Cooke salmon pen.

Read the full story at IntraFish