Offshore Fish Farms 'Not Ready for Primetime'

Open-ocean commercial fish farms aren't helping either the rapid depletion of wild fish species or the U.S. overreliance on imported seafood, according to a new study from Food & Water Watch.

The report, "Fishy Farms: The Problems with Open Ocean Aquaculture," examines four government-sponsored, experimental fish farms in the U.S. The government has invested more than $25 million in taxpayer funds to support these experimental farms in Hawaii, New Hampshire and Puerto Rico in hopes of eventually encouraging many more such commercial operations in open public waters. The goal is to ease overfishing pressures on wild fish populations and help reduce the nation's seafood trade deficit, which stands at about $9.2 billlion per year.

Open ocean fish farms raise tens of thousands of fish in cages anchored to the sea floor anywhere from three to 200 miles off the U.S. coast. However, rather than benefitting wild fish and cutting seafood imports, such farms have so far failed to proved themselves "environmentally sustainable, financially viable or technically possible on a commercial scale," the Food & Water Watch report stated.

"Offshore aquaculture is not ready for primetime," said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch. "We're concerned not only about how offshore aquaculture will be detrimental to our marine resources, but how it will impact our coastal communities and the economy. This industry will cause more problems than it proposes to solve."

Problems with the open ocean experimental farms have ranged from large-scale die-offs of fish and the threat of sharks to economic factors that are unsustainable, according to the study. In one case cited in the report, each pound of fish sold from one fish farm carried a production price-tag of around $3,000 in taxpayer dollars.

Open ocean fish farms also raise the risk of chemical-laden waste entering the ocean, fish containing PCBs and other toxins, the accidental release of genetically inferior fish that could reproduce with other fish in the wild and high consumption of fishmeal made from wild fish.

Nor does open ocean fish show promise for reducing the U.S.'s seafood trade deficit, the study found. That's because the fish raised in the experimental farms tend to be high-priced fish served in fine dining establishments and sushi bars, rather than the more common fish bought by consumers at grocery stores and restaurants. These more popular seafood choices -- including shrimp, salmon, crab, tilapia, tuna and shellfish -- are among the top imports to the U.S., even though many such seafoods are produced domestically.

The study said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is "overlooking the fact that the seafood trade deficit could be reduced by increasing consumption of domestic fish. Simply put, the United States can become less reliant on imports if more domestic fish is eaten domestically. The United States exports 71 percent of its domestic production, including 87 percent of tilapia, 78 percent of tuna, 69 percent of salmon, 25 percent of crabs, and 13 percent of shrimp.

The Food & Water Watch study concluded by recommending that U.S. should no longer pursue open ocean fish farming like that tested in Hawaii, New Hampshire and Puerto Rico. Rather, it said, the U.S. should work to improve the health of natural fisheries around the globe by finding ways to reduce overfishing, prevent unwanted bycatches of other fish and cutting subsidies that encourage overfishing and industry consolidation. U.S. consumers can also help by asking the stores and restaurants they frequent to stop carrying seafood raised in offshore fish farms.

Food & Water Watch, "Ocean Fish Farms Swimming in Problems." URL: (http://foodandwaterwatch.org/press/releases/ocean-fish-farms-swimming-in-problems-article1109200)