| The demand for seafood is on the rise all around the world. But the numbers of many wild fish are declining due to overfishing and loss of habitat. To bridge the gap between supply and demand, researchers are trying to raise marine fish and shellfish in large pens off at sea. It's called offshore aquaculture, and it might soon be the source for much of your seafood.
Paul Sandifer is a senior scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He says offshore aquaculture would go a long way to developing a homegrown supply of seafood.
"The numbers that are bandied about are something like 75 - 80 percent of what we are consuming on our plates is coming from outside the country. So anything we can do in this country to responsibly reduce our reliance on imports, the better security we've got over our own food supply."
Sandifer says there are still some questions about how to develop offshore aquaculture, and one of the big ones is where to do it.
The fish pens might be located several miles out at sea. That would keep them from being disturbed by commercial shipping and recreational boating. But the federal government has jurisdiction over waters between three miles and 200 miles off the U.S. coast. Sandifer says there's no clear way to get permission right now to raise fish in that zone.
"It is clear that in the area of aquaculture there is very little policy that would either enable or allow development of marine aquaculture, particularly in federal waters offshore."
Legislation was recently submitted to Congress to establish regulations for a new offshore aquaculture industry. Sandifer says pilot projects are now underway off the coasts of New Hampshire, Hawaii and Puerto Rico, and he says they're showing promising results. |