US to open Pacific to farmers

AMERICAN officials are reportedly working on a plan to expand fish farming into federal waters around the Pacific Ocean.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is creating a plan to manage commercial fish farms in federal waters, the area of ocean from three to 200 miles offshore, around Hawaii and other Pacific islands.

The programme is similar to one recently implemented by NOAA in the Gulf of Mexico and would help the US reduce its dependence on imported seafood, which currently accounts for more than 90 pent of fish and shellfish consumed in the States.

New technologies are being developed for open-ocean aquaculture, but many US companies are having to go overseas to farm, according to NOAA officials.

‘The US’s view is we’d rather have these US companies pursuing these opportunities in a sustainable, environmentally sound way in the US,’ said Michael Tosatto, NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service regional administrator.

The NOAA plan would create a regulatory and permitting scheme for the industry. ‘It’s reasonably common knowledge that the environmental laws are less where aquaculture occurs the most, (that) being China and other South-East Asia countries,’ Tosatto said.

Many foreign operations have US companies supplying the breed stock, then the fish are grown and sold back to the US as imported seafood.

Farmed fish in 2014 was valued at $1.3 billion, Tosatto said, and constitutes just 19 per cent of the nation’s seafood production. That amounts to only one per cent of the global farmed product.

NOAA has been trying to establish an aquaculture industry in federal waters for many years, but attempts to get legislation to implement open-sea aquaculture have failed.

‘All forms of aquaculture can be done responsibly or irresponsibly,’ said Michael Rubino, NOAA aquaculture programme director. ‘We will need all forms done well to meet seafood demand and healthy ocean objectives.’