Saving Seafood

Groups question aquaculture “roadmap”

May 5, 2022 — A group of scientists, students and organizations earlier this spring wrote a letter to the director of the Maine Sea Grant program expressing concern about a recently released 10-year plan for the state’s growing aquaculture industry.

The Maine Aquaculture Roadmap 2022-2032 was produced by the Maine Aquaculture Hub, a network founded by five organizations: Maine Sea Grant, the Maine Aquaculture Association, the Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center, Coastal Enterprises Inc. and the University of Maine Aquaculture Research Institute. Prior to the report’s release, the writers held a series of focus groups to gather input from interested parties, including aquaculturists, fishermen, government agencies, academics, environmental groups, nonprofits and others.

But critics, in a letter to Gayle Zydlewski, director of Maine Sea Grant, voiced concerns regarding “the framing; timing; representativeness of participants; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and limited focus on education.”

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

 

Brian Perkins leading GAA’s transition into GSA

May 3, 2022 — On 20 April, 2021, the Global Aquaculture Alliance (GAA) announced it was transitioning into the Global Seafood Alliance (GSA).

A year into the change, the organization selected Brian Perkins – who has more than four decades of experience in the seafood industry – as its new CEO to lead the transition. Perkins replaced former CEO Wally Stevens on 1 January. Perkins served as the organization’s chief operating officer prior to his new role, and joined the organization after a six-year role at the Marine Stewardship Council.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

MAINE: American Aquafarms project terminated

April 28, 2022 — American Aquafarms’ plan to raise 66 million Atlantic salmon in Frenchman Bay seems to be dead in the water. But the broad citizens’ coalition, which swelled to include all seven Frenchman Bay towns, the Downeast lobster fishery, Acadia National Park, MDI Biological Laboratory and several land trusts, has kept a steady spotlight trained on the issue for a year and is very much alive. 

In fact, Frenchman Bay United is prepared to challenge industrial-scale fish farming in Maine coastal waters in light of the departments of Marine Resources and Environmental Protection’s decisions late last week to terminate the Norwegian-backed company’s project that would have involved discharging 4.1 billion gallons of diluted wastewater into the 14-mile bay.  

For over a year Frenchman Bay United, a coast-wide coalition of four groups, has led an aggressive public campaign to oppose American Aquafarms’ proposed operation to farm salmon at 15-pen sites off Bald Rock Ledge and Long Porcupine Island. Its members offered scientific data suggesting the farm’s discharged wastewater would largely remain rather than exit Frenchman Bay and potentially harm fragile marine plants, ecosystems and the lobster, shrimp and scallop fisheries. They staged a 125-boat flotilla of lobster-fishing boats, kayakers and sailors last August in Frenchman Bay as a form of protest and other events to draw attention to the controversial project first proposed in mid-fall of 2020. 

Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander

Petter Johannessen Q&A: IFFO’s director general on developing the feed ingredients landscape

April 27, 2022 — The aquaculture feed sector is seeing the development of new inputs with the potential to improve the sustainability and availability of its product. While these new innovations can contribute to meeting the needs of a growing population, the buzz around such opportunities overshadows the importance of – and innovation in – traditional inputs like fishmeal, which still holds the greatest potential to efficiently deliver a nutrient-rich, sustainable feed to the aquaculture marketplace.

Petter Martin Johannessen joined IFFO, the international trade body that represents the marine ingredients industry, in 2018 as director general. He will be a featured speaker for the Seafood Expo Global conference session “Beyond the buzz: Developing a healthy, sustainable feed,” taking place on 28 April from 10:30 – 11:30. Here, Johannessen shares his thoughts on what the future holds for marine ingredients.

SeafoodSource: What role do marine ingredients play in the market now, and what role do you see the industry playing in the future?

Johannessen: The role of marine ingredients in supporting the growth of aquaculture is well known for being the foundational ingredients that underpinned the development of the sector worldwide. Still today, more than 70 percent of fishmeal and fish oil production are used by aquaculture because of an unmatched combination of properties: nutritional profile (long chain omega-3s, protein, vitamins and minerals), palatability, digestibility, volumes (approximately 5 million metric tons [MT] of fishmeal and 1 million MT of fish oil are produced each year), and prices.

Based on the United Nations’ FAO estimates, aquaculture production could more than double and reach 140 million MT by 2050. With more and more feed ingredients required to support this growth, marine ingredients are increasingly used at strategic stages of the production cycle, where critical nutrients are indispensable. Increasing marine ingredient production into the future is expected through the better use of fishery and aquaculture by-products, which already make up one third of marine raw materials used to produce fishmeal and fish oil.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Aquaculture proponents fly in to Washington DC to push for AQUAA Act

April 27, 2022 — Proponents of expanding America’s aquaculture industry began a three-day meeting with lawmakers and their aides in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, 26 April, in hopes of drumming up more support for a bill to create more opportunities for offshore fish farms.

The fly-in sponsored by industry coalition group Stronger America Through Seafood is the first since the COVID-19 pandemic began more than two years ago. The event is drawing representatives from a wide array of companies, including restaurant chain Red Lobster and animal feed producer Cargill.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

AquaBounty salmon eggs cited as reason for Maine’s rejection of American Aquafarms permit

April 22, 2022 — The Department of Marine Resources (DMR) in the U.S. state of Maine rejected American Aquafarms permit application for a closed-net salmon farm specifically because its source for eggs – AquaBounty’s hatchery in Newfoundland, Canada – did not meet the state’s criteria for a qualified source.

According to DMR spokesperson Edward Hardy, the agency “terminated the applications of American Aquafarms after the company failed to fulfill its legal obligation to demonstrate an available source of fish to be cultivated at its proposed salmon farms in Frenchman Bay.”

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

American Aquafarms loses bid for essential lease

April 21, 2022 — American Aquafarms’ planned aquaculture project in Gouldsboro, Maine, U.S.A. hit a major setback as the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) decided it would no longer process the company’s lease applications.

American Aquafarms has been working to create a closed net-pen salmon farm in Frenchman’s Bay in Maine. To that end, the company purchased the former East Coast lobster facility in Gouldsboro and named Keith Decker as its CEO as the company negotiated the permit process for its farm.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

New report sets broad goals for Maine’s aquaculture industry in the next decade

April 15, 2022 — In the last 8 years, Maine’s aquaculture harvest has more than doubled in volume and in value, and some predict that the state’s aquaculture exports could be worth as much as $800 million by 2025. A new report is recommending how that growth should be managed over the next decade. But critics say it’s too focused on expanding the industry, and gives short shift to other users of the ocean commons or the ecosystems that they all depend on.

The document sets broad goals for aquaculture’s next decade in Maine, starting with streamlined permitting for public water leases that “balances the rights of the applicant and the public.

And it identifies the potential costs of specific actions: $100,000, for instance, to support a state employee who would help applicants get through the permitting process and engage with host communities, $100,000 to integrate aquaculture into K-12 education, and a quarter million dollars to create a Maine Seafood Council to market both farmed and wild-caught seafood.

“It’s one tool that can be used along with the many tools the state has in thinking about the future,” said Gayle Zydlewski, who directs Maine Sea Grant, a federal-state program housed at the University of Maine that led a collaborative effort to create the so-called Maine Aquaculture Roadmap.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Gouldsboro considers aquaculture licensing ordinance

April 15, 2022 — The town of Gouldsboro’s attorney has drawn up a draft aquaculture licensing ordinance that would apply to all farming of marine fauna and flora — from Atlantic salmon to seaweed — and set standards and requirements for both land- and ocean-based ventures seeking to operate in or from the town. The incomplete, all-encompassing document requires further work before it can be presented at a public hearing and put to voters at a town meeting.

Many months in the works, Rudman Winchell attorney Tim Pease’s 23-page draft document Thursday evening was submitted to the Gouldsboro selectmen for their review. Pease will go through the proposed Aquaculture Licensing Ordinance in detail and answer questions at the Planning Board’s next regular meeting at 6 p.m. next Tuesday, April 19, at the Prospect Harbor Women’s Club. Pease and staff scrutinized existing municipal standards, policies and regulations concerning aquaculture development in Maine and beyond. In formulating the draft ordinance, they also were assisted in the process by and took into account much input from year-round and seasonal Gouldsboro residents as well as concerned citizens in neighboring Schoodic Peninsula towns.

Imposed late last fall, Gouldsboro’s six-month moratorium on 10-acre-plus finfish aquaculture development is due to expire May 15. As part of their regular meeting, Thursday, April 28, Gouldsboro Selectmen are scheduled to hold a public hearing to determine whether to end or extend the freeze. Sources expect the Select Board to continue the ban for another six months.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

 

Japan investigating fishmeal substitutes for aquaculture feed

April 15, 2022 — Researchers in Japan are investigating alternative sources for aquaculture feed as the country’s growing aquaculture sector hits the limits of the country’s traditional supply of aquafeed.

The main materials for aquaculture feed – fishmeal and fish oil – remain a limited resource. Despite increased substitution of other ingredients in feed, like soy proteins, poultry byproducts, and fish-processing waste, aquaculture feed prices are increasing, in part due to Russia’s  invasion of Ukraine, which has dampened the global supply of wheat and other ingredients used in fishmeal production.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource