Saving Seafood

Rabobank: Farmed fish, shrimp production to bounce back in 2024

December 5, 2023 — Global seafood supply is likely to rise next year, with key aquaculture production sectors returning to a period of growth after a turbulent 2023, according to new analysis compiled by the RaboResearch unit of Dutch financial services company Rabobank.

Summarizing key takeaways from Rabobank’s annual production survey with support from the Global Seafood Alliance, the report, “What to Expect in the Aquaculture Industry in 2024,” anticipates worldwide shrimp production will recover in the year ahead after a modest 0.4 percent decline in output in 2023. At the same time, global salmon harvests are likely to rise after two years of flat or declining yields, and various farmed whitefish sectors are expected to see an upturn.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

Beyond The Seas

November 16, 2023 — If it still seems strange to think of fish growing on farms, it shouldn’t.

Aquaculture has been the fastest growing food sector in the world for decades, and people now eat more farmed fish than wild fish.

The industry has had to grow. Demand for seafood is soaring and will continue to rise. But the oceans are giving up all they can: Production of wild fish has been flat since about 1990.

Fish farming and shellfish production usually spew far less greenhouse gas emissions than production of beef and other animal protein, but aquaculture can still cause serious environmental problems.

And as it has grown, the problems with large-scale farming have grown with it. Many are like problems that face massive chicken, pig and cattle operations. The farms and the waste from them can degrade and pollute nearby ecosystems, diseases can quickly sweep through the tightly packed fish, and gathering the feed for the animals can cause distant environmental problems.

Faced with stinging criticism and tighter regulations — and eager to meet demand — fish farmers are trying new ways to boost production and minimize harm.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Offshore Wind Developers Eye New Alliances With Aquaculture Industry

November 7, 2023 — Efforts to get the US offshore wind industry off the ground have been slow and stumbling, partly on account of opposition from stakeholders in the fishing industry. That’s the bad news. On a brighter note, wind developers elsewhere are beginning to attract aquaculture stakeholders with opportunities for multi-use and co-located operations. If the trend takes hold, that could help deflect some of those fish-related slings and arrows.

Offshore Wind: It’s Not Just About The Fish

Fishing industry stakeholders are not the only ones with an interest in thwarting renewable energy development along the eastern US seaboard. Oil industry-affiliated organizations and their allies in government have also been in the mix.

According to a Reuters report in 2021, for example, a nonprofit organization called the Texas Public Policy Institute has provided pro bono support to a lawsuit brought by fishing businesses in three states seeking to block approval of the Vineyard Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts.

These Offshore Wind Turbines Are Engineered For Fish Farming

Elsewhere around the world, offshore wind stakeholders are already making the case for fish-friendly wind farms. Last week, the Chinese company Shanghai Electric emailed CleanTechnica with an update on a first-of-its-kind, deep sea offshore wind project in China’s National Marine Ranching Demonstration Zone.

The project consists of three floating wind turbines and solar panels, too. Each floating platform includes a hexagonal interior space reserved for fish farming. The fish ponds were previously tested on a 1:40 scale model as part of a series of almost 200 operational tests for the project as a whole.

“The pioneering convergence of wind power, photovoltaics, and aquaculture presents a new horizon for the industry to develop sustainable and green renewable solutions designed to reduce carbon emissions while boosting economic growth,” Shanghai Electric enthused.

Last spring, another Chinese firm also let word slip about its interest in designing offshore wind turbines for aquaculture. In a post on LinkedIn, the company Mingyang Smart Energy announced that it has designed a  jacket-type wind turbine foundation with an integrated fish cage.

In contrast to simple pile-type foundations, jacket foundations are complex structures designed for use in deeper waters.

“This typhoon-resistant structure includes an intelligent aquaculture system with remote functions, such as automated feeding, monitoring, detection, and collection,” the company stated.

MingYang estimates that its system can accommodate up to 150,000 fish in a body of water measuring 5,000 cubic meters. The new turbine is slated to be installed at the company’s 505-megawatt Mingyang Qingzhou 4 wind farm in the South China Sea, which is scheduled for commissioning in 2026.

Read the full article at CleanTechinca

NOAA Is Rolling Out a Plan to Radically Expand Offshore Aquaculture. Not Everyone Is Onboard.

August 16, 2023 — The cardboard gravestones read “RIP Local fisherman,” “RIP Wild Fish,” and “RIP Humpback Whales.” Assembled in response to new aquaculture sites planned off the coast of California, the gravestones were brought to the offices of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Long Beach, California, in April by activists keen to register their discontent.

The sites pave the way for possibly dozens of new open-pen fish farms as far as three miles offshore, the future home of species that range from carp to salmon. Chief among the protesters’ concerns were entanglement of marine mammals, the expansion of dead zones caused by fish excrement, and infringement on wild fishing grounds.

Such has been the pushback to the announcement of the site plan following NOAA’s first-ever five-year strategic plan for aquaculture. The plan, released last October, outlines national goals for a thriving and sustainable domestic farmed seafood sector. Central to its aim is using science and best-practice approaches to identify areas in the U.S. suitable for development. Pro-aquaculture proponents have touted its potential to reverse a growing seafood trade deficit and provide Americans with seafood for years to come. However, not everyone sees it this way.

Opponents to the plan point to known risks, including ecological disasters like the infamous 2017 salmon spill that took place in Washington State waters when a salmon net pen collapsed, releasing roughly 300,000 Atlantic salmon in Puget Sound. The spill wreaked havoc, and scientists, environmentalists, and policymakers worried escaped salmon could spread disease or parasites to native Pacific varieties.

Accidents like these are why some governments are moving away from the practice, opponents say. Argentina, Washington State, and British Columbia recently banned net-pen salmon aquaculture. So why, then, is the U.S. moving ahead?

The goal to increase farmed seafood production in America dates back to the National Aquaculture Act of 1980 when the U.S. established aquaculture as a national policy priority. Thanks to an acceleration of scientific improvements in the field, the effort has gained momentum over the past decade.

Read the full article at Civil Eats

US lawmakers want to make sure aquaculture gets equal treatment by USDA

August 4, 2023 — A group of U.S. lawmakers are continuing their campaign to ensure the aquaculture industry is getting adequate support and fair treatment from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Last week, U.S. Representative Frank Pallone (D-New Jersey) introduced the Supporting Equity for Aquaculture and Seafood (SEAS) Act, which would require the USDA to ensure it provides “fair funding levels” to aquaculture producers in its program. The USDA, Pallone claimed, devotes a disproportionate percentage of its program funding to animal agriculture.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

MAINE: Better connecting the fishing and aquaculture communities in Maine and beyond

June 21, 2023 — While the ways that aquaculture can actively support commercial fisheries have been well established, there is nonetheless a tension between certain fishing and aquaculture communities. Though it can be easy to look at these two industries in a monochromatic way, aquaculture can open up brand-new opportunities for fishermen. Aquaculture farms represent another form of income for fishing families and can open up additional opportunities to employ those looking to get involved in jobs on the coast.

The tension between these communities can become prominent when certain perspectives are exclusively focused on, and National Fisherman fell into that trap with a recent article that only explored one perspective around the creation of a fish farm in Frenchman Bay, Maine. While the coastal community in Maine is a small one, it’s essential to contextualize the opportunities that projects like this can represent for hardworking fishermen who are considering expanding into the ground fishing, lobstering, and scalloping sectors of Maine’s state fisheries.

To provide that context, National Fisherman caught up with Sebastian Belle, executive director of the Maine Aquaculture Association. He fully detailed the opportunities that aquaculture can provide fishermen, clarified the current state of Maine state regulations on aquaculture farms, outlined why what was proposed at Frenchman Bay would have never been issued a lease in Maine and more.

Read his insights below but also feel free to get in touch to let us know how National Fisherman can continue to cover these topics in a more complete manner.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

MAINE: Maine legislative panel votes down aquaculture regulation bill

March 26, 2023 — A legislative committee voted Thursday to kill a bill that sought to establish additional regulations on Maine’s industrial aquaculture sector.

The Sierra Club-backed measure sought to require the Department of Marine Resources to ensure that new land-based aquaculture facilities would not degrade water or air quality or increase carbon emissions.

It also would have put in place strict new standards for feed sources.

Read the full article at Spectrum News

National animal rights group sues Maine over aquaculture rules

March 1, 2023 — A national animal rights group is suing the state, alleging that it has failed to adequately protect fish raised in aquaculture facilities and that it does not have rules in place to regulate large-scale fish farms.

Animal Outlook, an animal advocacy organization based in Washington DC and California, filed suit Feb. 22 in Kennebec County Superior Court to challenge the state’s decision to reject its citizen petition.

The petition, signed by 152 registered Maine voters, calls on the state agriculture department to adopt new rules regarding inspections and enforcement of animal cruelty laws for fish raised by commercial companies.

But the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry rejected the petition in September, calling it “incomplete and defective,” primarily because Animal Outlook didn’t provide text for the rule it wants the state to adopt.

In the February lawsuit, Animal Outlook accuses the state of refusing to adopt standards for aquaculture facilities, failing to investigate the facilities and failing to enforce existing animal cruelty laws.

The agriculture department did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

Read the full article at Spectrum News

Virginia Tech study shows consumer behavior pandemic repercussions threaten US aquaculture businesses

February 21, 2023 — Researchers at Virginia Tech are researching consumer market data to aid the survival of aquaculture businesses in the wake of the economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The study, based on surveys completed in 2022, is examining a wide array of consumer data to analyze the “abrupt changes” in the food supply chain, and how that impacted consumer purchasing of food. In turn, the researchers said they hope to provide information to guide aquaculture businesses in marketing efforts to respond to the changes.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe Files Lawsuit Against Department of Natural Resources Over Flawed Administrative Action Banning Marine Net-Pen Aquaculture in Puget Sound

December 16, 2022 — The following was released by the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe:

Today the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe took legal action to protect our Sovereign rights in response to the recent ill-informed and overreaching decision by Commissioner Hillary Franz and the Department of Natural Resources to ban sustainable marine net-pen aquaculture in Puget Sound waters.

“As a Tribe, we have always been conscientious stewards of our natural environment and look seven generations ahead in all that we do,” said W. Ron Allen, CEO and Tribal Chairman of the Jamestown S’Klallam. “Modern, well-regulated aquaculture is the environmentally responsible solution for producing seafood and exercising our Tribal treaty rights – now and into the future.”

“Tragically, population growth, pollution, poor environmental protections and development activities in the Pacific Northwest have negatively impacted our wild fish stocks,” said Allen. “We must have options available to take pressure off wild fish stocks through sustainable aquaculture which will aid listed stocks to regain sustainable levels and prevent their extinction.”

A vast array of scientific studies have repeatedly shown that well-regulated aquaculture is not an ecological threat to the Puget Sound marine environment. In March 2022, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service released an extensively researched biological opinion that studied marine finfish aquaculture in Puget Sound and found little to no negative impact on Puget Sound marine ecosystems, including native species such as endangered salmon, Orcas, or their habitat.

Farmed seafood requires the lowest energy demand of any sourced protein, a fraction of what is required to farm chicken, pork, or beef and produces far less greenhouse gas emissions than land-based agriculture. It seems only natural that Washington would embrace aquaculture as an industry that complements its own natural stock fisheries and allows our State to be a global leader in feeding the planet, and sourcing locally grown seafood in the most climate friendly way possible.

In addition to refusing to respect the science about marine net-pen aquaculture, this decision was highly undemocratic. Commissioner Franz has mistakenly usurped the authority of our Washington State Legislature to make public policy decisions, like the bipartisan bill passed in 2018 which allows native species marine net-pen farming in Washington waters.

Fish and shellfish have always been an integral part of S’Klallam culture as subsistence, as well as for the traditions associated with harvest, preparation, and celebration. For millennia, S’Klallam people fed their families with fish and shellfish, and traded their abundant harvest with other Tribes, devising methods for holding fresh catch, and preserving the harvest for future consumption. Our Tribe is desiring to take advantage of 21st century technology to advance this industry.

Food sovereignty, the ability to grow and provide one’s own food sources, builds self-reliance, independence, and confidence in our youth and community. That is all in jeopardy now due to Commissioner Franz’s announcement to end marine net-pen aquaculture in Puget Sound.

By taking legal action today, the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe is strongly defending its sovereign right of self-governance and self-reliance by utilizing marine net-pen aquaculture to provide traditional sustenance and guarantee Tribal food security from our established fishery in our Usual and Accustomed Treaty Area in Puget Sound and the Salish Sea.