U.S. ripe for sustainable aquaculture

While many discussions surrounding sustainable seafood have included the pros and cons of farmed fish, few have discussed the realities of farming fish in the United States. Aquaculture is big business for many countries, although not necessarily here in the United States. While some countries have experienced double-digit percentage growth from 2004 to 2006, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, America was not among them. Most aquaculture growth is in developing nations such as Uganda, Guatemala an d Mozambique.

The United States isn’t listed among the top 10 producing countries. Instead, the world’s aquaculture business is dominated by China, in terms of volume, and Vietnam, based on percentage growth. China led production with 66.7 percent, followed by other parts of Asia and the Pacific with 22.8 percent and a host of regions making up the remaining percentage. North America accounts for 1.2 percent, just ahead of the Near East, but behind Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean and Africa. In China alone, 4.5 million people are involved in aquaculture.

North America accounts for 2.2 percent of the world aquaculture market from a value standpoint, while China and Asia dominate with 48.8 percent and 28.3 percent, respectively.

In 2008, the U.S. aquaculture industry was valued at about $1.2 billion. Catfish dominated in volume at 233,564 metric tons, followed by crawfish at 53,285 metric tons and salmon and trout, with about 16,000 metric tons each.

Those numbers have held fairly steady for 10 years, says Dr. Michael Rubino, manager of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Aquaculture Program in Silver Spring, Md.

Dave Conley, senior consultant and founding partner of The Aquaculture Communications Group in Ottawa, says “for whatever reason, the United States is not an enabling environment” for aquaculture. “Most people would rather do [fish farming] elsewhere,” establishing farms in other countries and exporting the product to ?North America.

To read the rest of the feature on aquaculture, click here. Written by SeaFood Business Contributing Editor Joanne Friedrick, the story ran in the November issue of SeaFood Business magazine.