As seafood imports grow, U.S. aims to expand production

Darryl Brown and his son Levi display the Pacific white shrimp that they raise in northwest Indiana. ASSOCIATED PRESS Enlarge

INDIANAPOLIS -- The federal government is moving to open large swaths of coastal waters to fish farming in an effort to decrease Americans' dependence on imports and satisfy their growing appetite for seafood.

But conservationists worry that expanding fish farms far offshore will threaten the oceans' health.

More than four-fifths of the seafood Americans ate in 2009 was imported, according to the latest figures from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Those imports have soared in the past decade as U.S. production lagged while other nations ramped up sea farming.

U.S. seafood consumption grew to nearly 5 billion pounds in 2009 from just over 4 billion pounds in 1999 as the Food and Drug Administration urged consumption of greater amounts of heart-healthy seafood.

The oceanic agency and the Commerce Department issued policies last month to open federal waters to fish and shellfish farms. Those waters start 3 miles offshore in most states and extend to 200 miles. Most U.S. saltwater fish and shellfish farms are in state waters close to shore, and none exists in federal waters.

Half of the world's seafood production is from aquaculture. But in 2009, less than 2 percent of the seafood eaten in the United States was grown along the nation's coasts or in inland saltwater ponds.

Technological advances have opened the potential for farms far from coastal areas, such as the saltwater shrimp operation that Darryl Brown, who operates a grain farm near Fowler, Ind., about 100 miles northwest of Indianapolis, opened last year. He raises hundreds of pounds of Pacific white shrimp a month in six 6,600-gallon tanks in a barn that once held horses and cows.

Mr. Brown sells the mature shrimp live for $15 a pound to restaurants, at farmers' markets, and to visitors to his farm. So far, he said, he's sold all he's raised.

Michael Rubino, who heads the oceanic agency's aquaculture program, said the new policies should help cut the nation's seafood trade deficit, which reached $10.7 billion last year.

But before ocean aquaculture can expand into federal waters, the nation's eight regional fish management councils must create aquaculture plans for their regions, Connie Barclay, a spokesman for the oceanic agency, said. Then federal regulators will craft more specific rules for the farms, with protections for wild species and coastal and ocean ecosystems, she said.

The Gulf Coast has started work on its plan, and proposals are in the works to adapt unused oil and natural gas platforms for fish farming.

Bob Rheault, executive director of the East Coast Shellfish Growers Association, who supports the expansion, said obtaining state permits to start a shellfish farm can take years. His group represents about 1,000 shellfish growers from Maine to Florida who sell about $100 million in clams, oysters, and mussels a year. He said the shellfish industry accounts for two-thirds of U.S. marine aquaculture production.

Environmental groups fear the new policies will lead to big factory-style fish farms. Sebastian Troeng, vice president for marine conservation with Conservation International, said raising salmon, other large fish, and shrimp requires large amounts of feed made from smaller ocean fish, taking food away from declining wild fish populations.

And he noted that salmon, the primary saltwater fish farmed in the United States, can spread disease and parasites to wild fish and excrete waste that depletes ocean oxygen. The United States and other countries need to pursue aquaculture in a way that "puts as little demand on the environment as possible," he said. The new federal initiative includes a push for more research to reduce marine aquaculture's environmental impact and expand inland production.