The Blue Rush: Federal Legislation Needed to Bolster Budding Offshore Aquaculture Industry

By Michael Lee, Executive Director, California Aquaculture Association

The United States, and California specifically, has an incredible opportunity to create an entirely new industry - offshore aquaculture. But federal legislation is needed to provide the foundation on which to build this industry.

The Food and Agriculture Organization’s State of the World Fisheries report estimates that 93% of wild fish stocks worldwide are fished at maximum sustainable levels[i]. Wild fisheries are managed well in California, but there are only so many fish that the ocean can sustainably produce. And with the world population projected to increase from the current 7.7 billion (2019) to 9.7 billion by 2050[ii], the demand for consumable proteins, including finfish, will only increase in the decades to come. Aquaculture is needed to supplement this demand.

Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has made it clear the need to increase food security in the United States. The U.S. imports 80% to 90% of its seafood[iii], approximately 50% of which is produced by way of aquaculture[iv]. So, we’re eating farmed fish already, it’s just not coming from our own farmers. We need to be producing more seafood domestically. California’s coastal waters provide us a perfect opportunity to do just that.

Also, compared to other industries, aquaculture provides a very efficient and sustainable method of protein production.[v] The feed conversion ratio for finfish aquaculture is very low, averaging approximately 1.15:1 (approximately 1.15 lbs of feed used to produce 1 lb of flesh).[vi] Additionally, the use of wild fish protein and oil in aquaculture feed has been decreasing as a result of an increased use of plant-based feed substitutes. The “fish in, fish out” (FiFo) ratio, the amount of wild fish needed in feed to produce a pound of farmed fish, when averaged across species, is equal to or less than 0.5:1 (approximately 0.5 lbs of wild fish used to produce 1 lb of farmed fish) for current worldwide aquaculture production.[vii]

The development of a marine finfish aquaculture industry will be vital to meet the growing demand for seafood (and food security) in California and throughout the United States. The establishment of a marine finfish aquaculture industry will provide economic opportunities that are currently being lost to other coastal states and countries. (As an example of this, Mexico is raising native U.S. finfish in marine waters and exporting this product to the U.S.)  As the United States has the largest contiguous EEZ, and as a large portion of the EEZ is off the coast of California, we have the opportunity to not only establish and develop the marine finfish industry, but to also become world leaders in marine finfish production. 

The AQUAA Act, which aims to establish national standards for offshore in the U.S. exclusive economic zone (EEZ), was recently reintroduced in Congress. Though areas of improvement remain with the legislation (e.g. the need for language that increases security of tenure, ideally through a lease as opposed to a permit), it provides a great deal of hope that we may see the creation of a much-needed offshore aquaculture industry in the not-so-distant future.

[i] FAO, State of World Fisheries, p. 40.

[ii] United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, World Population Prospects 2019, p.1.

[iii] NMFS, Office of Science and Technology, Fisheries of the United States, 2017 Report, Current Fishery Statistics No. 2017, September 2018, p. 114.

[iv] Hauke L. Kite-Powell, Michael C. Rubino, and Bruce Morehead, “The Future of U.S. Seafood Supply,” Aquaculture Economics & Management, vol. 17, no. 3 (August 2013), p. 229.

[v] Global Aquaculture Alliance, Why It Matters, http://aquaculturealliance.org/what-we-do/why-it-matters/

[vi] Trine Ytrestoyl, Turid Synnove Aas, and Torbjorn Asgard, “Utilization of Feed Resources in Production of Atlantic Salmon,” Aquaculture, vol. 448 (2015), pp. 365-374.

[vii] NOAA Fisheries, Office of Aquaculture, Feeds for Aquaculture.