Aquaculture Tales
Q&A with Renowned Chef Barton Seaver, a Sustainable Seafood Advocate
Award-winning chef Barton Seaver, one of the world’s leading sustainable seafood experts and educators, spoke with Stronger America Through Seafood from a beach near his home in Maine on June 16. Barton told us why aquaculture offers a new “blue food system” that can provide a plethora of healthy and delicious protein options for healthy living, and that in an aging economy, this industry offers the next generation economic and cultural opportunities.
How did you first learn about aquaculture?
Aquaculture was impossible to ignore and avoid, especially in professional kitchens and with the ethical responsibility of chefs. I first learned about aquaculture through a lot of negative campaigns seeking to paint it as fundamentally opposed to wild fisheries. Aquaculture had earned a bad reputation due to poor practices initially. The aquaculture industry had to prove itself as the new kid on the block by showing its ability to learn from mistakes and to communicate a cohesive narrative about the vision of the industry at large. Through change and technological advancements, aquaculture is now a sustainable industry. Aquaculture, paired with enduring wild fisheries, is an essential part of the future of a blue food system.
What are the opportunities in aquaculture?
Aquaculture is such a young industry, that the opportunities seem near infinite at this point. But of those immediately at hand, I am especially keen on opportunities for preservation of and development of rural, coastal economies. Globally, of those associated with the aquaculture industry, 70% are women. Thus showing that aquaculture is a direct conduit to invest in improving social conditions and addressing many other concerns through women’s empowerment. In developed economies, we are seeing a rapid aging in the wild fisheries fleet. And aquaculture has the capacity to reinvigorate those coastal economies by drawing in young talent. It’s important to understand that aquaculture and wild fisheries rely on many of the same support networks and economies (ie cold chain, housing, education) and thus aquaculture has the potential to reverse decades of brain drain from these rural coastal communities and turn the blue economy into a brain gain.
What would you tell people about the health benefits of seafood and why Americans should eat more seafood?
The health benefits of seafood are astounding. There is an overwhelming canon of literature that doesn’t just suggest seafood is healthy; it’s been proven over and over again just how important seafood is to the human diet for overall health, ranging from heart health to helping to prevent diabetes, aiding in overall cognitive and mental health. It’s amazing to me that American consumers do not eat more seafood. Many Americans have poor nutrition and poor health -- even before the start of the COVID pandemic -- and seafood has an essential role to play in fixing that and helping create a healthy and resilient populous. Also, seafood is just delicious. I’m thrilled to be able to cook something new and exciting. There is so much exploration and discovery when cooking seafood. Seafood is usually regional and comes with such narrative. This culinary opportunity is not matched by beef and pork.
What are some of the exciting innovations and technologies evolving the aquaculture industry?
There is an increased focus on innovators in the seafood space, which has been great and positive to see. The innovations that are so exciting to me are in the realm of aquaculture feeds and fish meal/ fish oil replacements: it’s tech and innovation. What I love so much about it is that it represents how low hanging the solutions and innovations for aquaculture are. A lot of the new developments are starting to come online now – bringing it from concept to the plate. Most of it has been in development for a while now and is beginning to make its way onto fish counters and available for the public. Large scale relationships are being developed between producers, which is changing the narrative on sustainability and aquaculture. There are some really exciting opportunities within the industry; thus, providing yet more proof of how exponential the potential is for aquaculture to change its narrative and to be at the forefront of so many important conversations.