Representatives from 80 seafood businesses and organizations signed on to a letter to U.S. senators on 13 October calling for support of a bipartisan bill designed to expand offshore aquaculture in federal waters.
The letter, submitted by Stronger America Through Seafood, comes about three weeks after U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi) refiled the Advancing the Quality and Understanding of American Aquaculture Act, or AQUAA Act. The advocates say the bill is needed to support sustainable marine aquaculture as well as the future of the U.S. seafood industry.
Among those signing the letter include: Kim Gorton, CEO of Slade Gorton and a key figure within the National Fisheries Institute; Bill DiMento, vice president of corporate sustainability and government affairs at High Liner Foods; and Horace G. Dawson III, the executive vice president and general counsel for Red Lobster.
“While commercial fishing and wild harvest are and always will be an important part of the seafood supply chain, aquaculture is the fastest-growing food-production sector in the world and is responsible for nearly all global supply growth since the 1990s,” the letter stated.
The letter said investing in aquaculture will help rejuvenate the seafood industry, which has been hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis. Increased aquaculture production would also have a spin-off effect as well, it said.
“Increased aquaculture production will lead to increased demand for American-grown crops, which can be used in plant-based fish feed, such as soybeans, corn, and peas, will open up new markets to heartland farmers and lessen dependence on the uncertainty of foreign trade relationships,” the letter stated.
Wicker, who chairs the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, originally filed the bill in June 2018, but that bill never got through the Senate before the term ended at the end of that year. The act was already reintroduced in the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this year.
The AQUAA Act would create national guidelines for aquaculture developments and would create a grant program spurring research and development in the industry.
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) is again a co-sponsor of this bill, and U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) joined as a co-sponsor to support the measure this year.
Photo courtesy of Office of U.S. Senator Roger Wicker
