November 25, 2011
US Aquaculture: Feeling Fishy?
With the population recently hitting seven billion, the need to provide food for the growing human race becomes more and more urgent. The amount of food available, though, is starting to decline, as the rate of intake far exceeds the natural reproductive rates of what we consume.
But omnivores, not to worry! The need to turn to vegetarianism is not quite there—the growth of aquaculture in the United States ensures that there will be enough seafood in everyday diet, at least for the time being.
The common definition of aquaculture is the farming of aquatic organisms such as fish and shellfish, which are grown to market size and released into the wild in order to support or rebuild wild stock populations. According to the NOAA Aquaculture Program, aquaculture also “includes the production of ornamental fish for the aquarium trade and plant species used in a range of food, pharmaceutical, nutritional, and biotechnology products.”
With all environmental alternatives, however, comes much debate over the proposed solution. Aquaculture faces heavy scrutiny from both scientists and the public over whether it is more beneficial or detrimental to our environment.
Currently, over 76% of world fisheries are either fully exploited, over exploited, or completely depleted, a grim outlook for the future of our diet. With aquaculture, however, the story is different, especially for the United States. The US is a major consumer of aquaculture projects; NOAA reports that “we import 84% of our seafood and half of that is from aquaculture—yet we are minor producer… Driven by imports, the US seafood trade deficit has grown to over $9 billion annually—the highest it’s ever been.” Though the US is typically at the forefront of everything, we are ranked 13th in total aquaculture production, behind countries from Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa, which explains much of the annual seafood trade deficit. By turning towards domestic seafood production, the nation’s dependence on imports will significantly reduce.
In addition to helping feed a growing US and world population, aquaculture can also “reduce fishing pressure on certain wild stocks if that species can be produced through aquaculture rather than fished,” reports a PBS document on aquaculture. And judging by the current state of our economy, more concentration in aquaculture can create jobs in communities and increase revenue on city, state, and national levels.
There are many advantages to aquaculture; however, there are some significant issues with it as well. One of the major problems with aquaculture is the threat to native fish populations. Wild fish are used to make feed for the farmed fish and often several pounds of wild fish are used to produce one pound of farmed fish. Because the fish are farmed in such a tight space, aquaculture often results in high incidences of disease, which can contaminate the waters outside of the pen threatening the native fish as well. To combat disease, antibiotics are dumped into the pens, which pollutes the surrounding waters. Fish escapes are also extremely common and interbreeding between native and farmed fish weakens the gene pool of the wild fish.
There are clear benefits and disadvantages to aquaculture. The question is: what should the US do? A New York Times article, Finding a Sustainable Way to Farm the Seas, suggests that with improvements to the industry, aquaculture could be more sustainable. Courtney Hough, general secretary of the Federation of European Aquaculture Producers, claims that “highly efficient feeds have helped bring down the ratio of fish-based feed to fish produced, sometimes to nearly one-to-one”. In addition vaccination and monitoring can help decrease the incidence of disease. There are ways to farm fish in a responsible and environmentally sustainable way. If done the right way, aquaculture could be a great solution to satisfying the protein needs of our growing population.
Links:
NOAA Aquaculture Program: http://aquaculture.noaa.gov/us/welcome.html
PBS: http://www.pbs.org/emptyoceans/educators/activities/docs/Aquaculture-Pros-and-Cons.pdf
NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/28/business/energy-environment/28iht-rbobfish.html
About the authors: Leslie Chang and Lauren Taymor are working towards their bachelor degrees in the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
I think it’s clear that aquaculture is a significant source of our food supply. I agree with the authors if done the right way aquaculture can satisfy many of our needs but that before that can happen, there must be improvements. The industry needs to be more efficient, to lower the risk of disease, and to make sure that there are no harmful effects on the surrounding ecosystem, like interbreeding between wild and farmed fish. California took the lead on this issue passing the Sustainable Oceans Actin 2006, which strictly regulates fish farming in state waters. In 2010 the U.S. House of Representatives introduced the National Sustainable Offshore Aquaculture Act, which has been stalled there for some time. If other states and other countries follow California on this issue, then I believe aquaculture should continue to grow as a method for food production.
Source: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/15/opinion/la-oe-naylor15-2010feb15
I do not think aquaculture is as viable as a solution to the fishery problem as you are suggesting in your article. Besides the potential of creating eutrophic conditions and exacerbating problems with diseases, there are also potential problems with gene transfer from transgenic organisms such as salmon. The question of whether GMO fish will enter a population is not if, but when. Given the limited sets of data of the potential of GMO organisms to disrupt the natural population, I believe it is much more viable to error on the side of caution and not expand or implement the use of GMO fish or fisheries in general. It may be more viable to reduce consumption of meat based products such as fish and cattle given the amount of resources that they consume in relation to their production. I will note that I am not a strict vegetarian, but I believe that this issue would be best approached through consumer moderation and perhaps a banning of fish within over exploited fisheries.
I think that there is a stigma in America about aquaculture. When you hear the word, it brings up controversy, and I feel that people hop on the bandwagon of trying to minimize their consumption of anything connected to aquaculture. But people don’t realize how essential it is. The world’s fisheries are dying, and fast. If they are depleted to a certain level, there is great fear that they will not be able to come back, and entire marine ecosystems can be greatly harmed causing even more externalities. American’s consume a great deal of aquaculture, often not even realizing from where their fish is coming from, and yet criticize it and work against it so that our production of aquaculture drops far below the amount we consume and rely upon it, and our reliance in trade is just putting us in a deeper and deeper economic rut. People think that they are eliminating the negative effects of aquaculture by simply denying its growth in America, and yet they continue to consume it when it is imported from countries that have less strict regulations, and prevent the negative impacts of aquaculture, much less than the regulations and improvements that would could have in the United States if it was more prevalent here. And many of the negative impacts associated with aquaculture are because it is practiced to an unsustainable extent and in excess. That’s why regulations of it and improvements upon it must be made, so it is much better for us to start domestically producing aquaculture in sustainable ways than completely cast it off, yet still widely consume it from foreign nations that could be far from sustainable aquaculture.