January 15, 2007

 

US to expand aquaculture output fivefold by 2020

 

 

The US aquaculture industry, with the support of the government, would expand output fivefold by 2020, week the Marine Aquaculture Task Force said last week.

 

Currently, more than three-quarters of all seafood eaten in the US comes from other countries.

 

At present, nearly half of all seafood consumed in the world comes from fish farms. Although the industry is expanding at a clip of 10 percent a year, in the US, it is only expanding by 2 percent a year.

 

The group unveiled recommendations to help guide development of the new industry, which would lease vast parcels of the sea offshore to fish farmers.

 

The farms would be colonies of undersea cages anchored in US waters three to 200 miles from shore.

 

The task force said new legislation would be necessary to ensure strong environmental standards are in place.

 

The jurisdictional framework over ocean space is complex and the laws that cover the major issues of aquaculture expansion are not well coordinated as there is overlap and a number of serious gaps, said Alison Reiser, a professor at the University of Hawaii and co-author of the leading casebook on ocean and coastal law. Reiser is also a member of the Marine Aquaculture Task Force.

 

Currently there is no lead federal agency that has the power to issue authorisation for a private company to farm ocean space for commercial aquaculture and oversee potential impacts, she added.

 

The panel recommends that the authority should go to NOAA (National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration) Fisheries, and not to regional management councils.

 

Offshore fish farms should be limited to native species, said Becky Goldberg, senior scientist for Environmental Defense. To reduce the need to catch wild fish to feed farmed fish, the government should also promote feeder fish culture, for the aquaculture industry, and develop alternatives to wild ingredient feeds, she said.