May 25, 2021 — A pesky little jellyfish-like animal is causing major problems—and major costs—for aquaculture everywhere by choosing to permanently live on aquafarming equipment, reducing production sustainability. However, new research from the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station in the UNH College of Life Sciences and Agriculture sheds light on possible ways to dissuade these animals at early, larval stage from calling aquaculture production systems home.
The research is vital to NH’s oyster-dominated aquaculture industry, in which the number of farms grew faster than any other state—a 229 percent increase— from 2013 to 2018, according to the U.S. Census of Aquaculture.
New Hampshire had nearly $1 million in sales from aquaculture in 2018. Globally, more than 50 percent of all human-consumed seafood is produced by aquaculture—the farming of fish, mollusks, aquatic plants, and other products. The global economic impact of aquaculture is greater than $31 billion. When post-harvest operations data are included, it is estimated that one in two workers in the sector is a woman.