Wild Habitat & Fish Fin Pens

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conversation. Several prominent fisheries scientists and economists have since claimed that nobody who knew anything ever believed that the oceans were inexhaustible, or that the promised 500 million tons of seafood per annum would ever materialize, but if they voiced those opinions they were ignored in the gold rush atmosphere of fisheries expansion.

A more accurate story might have gone something like this: America has a new plan to turn a public resource over to venture capitalists, subsidizing construction of highly mechanized vessels that will eliminate jobs, target already overexploited species, disenfranchise small-scale fishermen and destroy ecosystems in the bargain. When called out on the negative impacts of their enterprises, the targeted industries tend to follow a predictable trajectory that begins with denial, followed by demands for more science, and finally promises remedial action through improved technology, while more or less maintaining the status quo.

This strategy worked so well in fishery after fishery that when those fisheries could no longer drive economic growth, the same narrative was applied to aquaculture, almost verbatim, and with great effect. Michael Sutton, then director of the Center for the Future of the Oceans, at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, recognized the pattern ten-years ago.

“I think the danger here is that the federal government is poised to make the same mistakes they made with fishing over the years,” Sutton said in a 2005 interview. “And that is, subsidize the heck out of a new industry with little thought to the long-term effects.”

A technical memorandum Marine Cage Culture and the Environment—published in December 2013 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, the lead agency for aquaculture development in the United States’ federal waters—assures investors and regulators that marine finfish aquaculture will have little or no negative impact on the environment, and may in fact be beneficial if the cages are sited well and managed properly. Michael Rubino the director of NOAA’s aquaculture program, contends that farming fish, shellfish and seaweed in the marine environment will create jobs, reduce the trade deficit, and help meet domestic demand for seafood: the Blue Revolution version 2.0—industrial aquaculture.

“Eighty to ninety percent of US seafood is imported, and half of that comes from aquaculture,” said Rubino in a brief interview monitored by NOAA public affairs director Connie Barclay. “But as the middle class expands in China, some of that fish may no longer be available,” he warned. Drawing on the assumption that wild fisheries have reached their limit, Rubino insists that aquaculture in the US EEZ—the 3 million square mile area between 3 and 200 miles off the US coastlines, including US possessions in the Pacific, is the way it meet future demand for seafood. While NOAA has invested in shellfish and seaweed aquaculture pilot projects, carnivorous finfish—the most lucrative and controversial form of aquaculture—remain the agency’s primary focus.

Ten years ago, NOAA set out to create a 5 billion dollar aquaculture industry by 2025, but with the industry at 1 billion now, and the recent failure of a NOAA funded half-million dollar effort to grow cod in Frenchman’s Bay, near Sullivan, Maine, as well as the failure of another NOAA funded attempt to grow halibut and haddock in underwater net pens off the coast of New Hampshire, Rubino is re-assessing the 5 billion dollar goal. “That’s just a number somebody pulled out of a hat,” he said, but he declined to offer a more realistic estimate of projected aquaculture growth. In spite of setbacks, Rubino remains confident that the industry will overcome technological and technical obstacles to growth. “Right now we are focusing on shellfish, technology transfer—primarily with feeds—and regulations,” he said. “As it is now you can get a permit for your structure from the Army corp of Engineers, if you want to grow finfish you need a waste discharge permit from the EPA, and under Magnuson Stevens these fish are regulated species.” Rubino suggested a need for a simpler permitting process, something the industry has been asking for for years.

While Rubino asserted that NOAA was looking at all possibilities for growing seafood, through a competitive grant process, a review of current Saltonstall-Kennedy grants administered by the agency show the most grant money, $2.6 million, going into marine finfish aquaculture, the bulk of that money to address the industry’s two biggest problems: feed and disease. The “technology transfer” Rubino refers to above amounts to NOAA funded development of new, often GMO, feeds for carnivorous finfish. “We are aware of sustainable projects on a modest scale,” said Rubino. “We are working on the tools that will allow us to scale up.”

The Spin on Sustainable Aquaculture

Sustainable aquaculture is not impossible. The Chinese and other Asian cultures figured it out 4,000 years ago, and variations on the theme of growing fish in flooded rice paddies continues to this day. In Maine, according to the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR), oyster farming began over one hundred years ago and small shellfish farms now span the coast from Casco Bay to Jonesport, with good prospects for the future. These examples of healthy aquaculture are generally categorized by small size and low inputs, and Rubino acknowledges that shellfish farming and seaweed farming, both low input, represent NOAA success stories in New England.

The fallacies driving the Blue Revolution 2.0—industrial aquaculture version—sound as alarmingly detached from reality as the industrial fisheries revolution promises of jobs and food for the world.

It becomes difficult to distinguish between fairy tale and what Michael Rubino actually says in one interview, where he claims that the equivalent of Norway’s annual salmon production, over one million tons, could be grown in an area the size of New York’s JFK Airport. He ignores completely the area of ocean required to grow the forage fish that go into the feed, or the acreage of soybeans and corn.

NOAA put fiction in print on its web post “10 Myths About Aquaculture,” which stated that scientists had determined that “salmon farming has had minimal impacts on wild fish.” The US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Scottish Executive, National Geographic Society and many other trusted sources have identified salmon farming’s severe impacts on wild salmon. In our monitored discussion, Rubino refused to endorse the NOAA web page statement. The statement was later removed.

Fish Stories

Norwegian anthropologist, Erling Christiansen blames the acceptance of the absurd and tortured logic to the dominant discourse—stories that get repeated over and over until they become accepted, true or not. Christiansen authored a paper, Negative Externalities of Food Production: discourses on the contested Norwegian aquaculture industry, which describes four basic stories surrounding aquaculture development in Norway.

• The first salmon farming story comes primarily from large corporations, and it describes endless progress, using up one resource and moving on to the next, with a focus on sustainable profits. Christian labels this the “high turnover” narrative, and as an example he quotes a Norwegian professor of economics, Rögnvalddur Hannesson: “We should perhaps ask ourselves why we need wild salmon,” says Hannesson. “If wild salmon gets in the way of the sea farming industry, then we must sacrifice wild salmon… The industry creates great values and jobs along the entire coast.”

• The second story Christiansen identifies is that of the techno-optimists, such as Rubino, who cast a veneer of “sustainability” over views like Hannesson’s, promising that technology will overcome all obstacles, and lead to a sustainable industry. Christiansen quotes a Norwegian government official as saying: “We want controlled growth in parallel with the development of technologies that will ensure environmental sustainability.”

Rubino, who attributes his 30-year passion for aquaculture to Jacques Cousteau, calls for three pillars of sustainability: economic, social, and environmental. “Cousteau said ‘we need to farm the ocean as we farm the land.’ Now I think he would say, ‘we need to farm the ocean sustainably.’”

• The third story embraces “nature” as something that needs to be protected from people. Environmental organizations advocating no salmon farming zones tell this story, and as an example of that view, Christiansen quotes another government official, Heidi Sørensen: “Biological pollution, such as the diffusion of infectious diseases, is the worst kind of pollution because of its proliferating effects, causing extinction of habitats. The government is not even close to accomplishing the goals of the Strategy for an Environmentally Sustainable Norwegian Aquaculture Industry.”

Christiansen points out that in all of these perspectives no one questions the continued operation and growth of the Norwegian aquaculture industry.

• The final story is what Christiansen calls the “traditionalist” view, where fishermen call for the restoration of healthy fisheries as the best way to grow seafood. “Salmon farming is a disaster legitimized by politicians,” says one fisherman. “I haven’t heard any coastal fishers claiming that salmon farming is not destructive to their livelihood… Salmon farming is hurting traditional fisheries through feces and dirty fjords.”

“We have enough science now. The industry uses arguments of more science to postpone rectifications of the serious problems we have. We need to change the entire business,” said Rune Jensen, a wild salmon restoration advocate who would like to see salmon farming moved on shore.

Christiansen notes that much of the aquaculture discussion takes place between the techno-optimists and the environmentalists, and is what he calls “reactive,” and “static.” The mainstream press frequently reports on the controversy generated by reactions of the techno-optimists and environmentalists, who all agree that fish farming should move forward.

National Geographic Magazine, which published a scathing critique of salmon farming in 2008, has cast aquaculture in a better light in its June 2014, story: “How to Farm a Better Fish,” which promises technological answers to environmental concerns. On its website, National Geographic fuels a dreamlike perception of aquaculture by praising fish farmer Brian O’Hanlon for building a cobia farm, “from nothing… in the middle of nowhere.” Of course O’Hanlon required vast resources, including free clean water to flush the excrement out of his pens, and the middle of nowhere is an ecosystem producing wild fish for local people.

In Maine reporters have often tooted aquaculture’s horn to their mutual embarrassment. In 2011, both a Rockland newspaper writer and a Portland-based blogger lauded the NOAA funded cod project in Sullivan as a new opportunity for Maine fishermen. These journalists accepted the project advocate’s assertion: “In a report commissioned by the Maine DMR for the Governor’s Aquaculture Task Force, cod was identified as one of the most promising species for the Maine aquaculture industry (Gardner Pinfold, 2003).” The 2003 report in fact had placed cod at the bottom of a list of species worthy consideration, and by the time the project got under way, Michael Gardner, a co-author of the task force report said he would warn against cod farming. In June 2013, as soon as it had burned through several hundred thousand dollars of taxpayers’ money, the cod farm collapsed.

Another Maine reporter wrote a glowing report for Working Waterfront on Thailand’s shrimp farming industry. A year later a disease attributed to bad management cut Thai shrimp production by one third.

Often reporters are on tight deadlines without adequate time to fully research a story, so they roll with what they get, and the aquaculture industry does not miss a chance to bamboozle them. No one would argue that all aquaculture is bad or good, but willingly or not, many journalists become complicit in generating favorable spin for aquaculture ventures that do not deserve it.

Aquaculture in the Real World

Only on the extremes do the aquaculture stories approach reality, says Christiansen. In the form of adaptation, the high turnover advocated by big industry and venture capital deals with measurable declines in productivity and the need to shift capital for better returns, from nearshore to offshore aquaculture, for example. Traditionalists recognize many problems identified by environmentalists, but according to Christiansen they see themselves as part of healthy ecosystems, utilizing resources over the long-term, as seen in Maine’s lobster industry.

The adaptive approach of large corporations will continue for as long as possible, and has focused more on aquaculture with the debut earlier this year of the Coalition for U.S. Seafood Production (CUSP). CUSP functions as the industrial aquaculture lobby, working on behalf of the American Soybean Association, and to expand the culture of fish species that can be raised on feed made with Monsanto GMO soy beans.

According to the Agriculture blog page the Hagstrom Report: “The coalition has already met with Obama administration officials and with some members of Congress, and says it has convinced the administration to create a place for aquaculture in a new oceans policy.

[CUSP spokesman Steven] Hart said that although the group was told that there would be no specific mention of aquaculture in the policy, when the report came out three weeks later, it was included in several places.

Hart said the coalition’s goals include finalizing a fishery management plan for marine aquaculture in the Gulf of Mexico, reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevenson Marine Fisheries Management Act, which guides NOAA’s activities related to aquaculture and the declaration of aquaculture as a “specialty crop” in the next farm bill, which would qualify it for certain Agriculture Department [subsidy] programs.”

Beverly Paul, of the American Soybean Association, spoke at the same conference as Hart, and pointed out that due to cuts in bio-diesel production as well as government proposals to ban trans-fats—which could lead to the replacement of soybean oil with palm oil—soybean producers need to expand their already significant sales to aquaculture feed producers. “When one sector is challenged, the rest of the industry needs to step forward,” Paul is quoted as saying. She epitomizes the “high turnover” view. Having exhausted bio-diesel subsidies and the tolerance of the consumers, GMO soy growers must seek profits in aquaculture.

At the other end of the spectrum, crowd-funded entrepreneurs Jackson McLeod and Tyler Gaudet started Fluid Farms, an aquaponics system producing vegetables and tilapia, a fresh water fish, on land in Yarmouth, Maine. Aquaponics systems replicate the ancient Chinese systems where the nutrients from fish waste fertilize food crops on land.

Brian Marks, a Louisiana-based fisheries activist with historical ties to Louisiana’s $195 million crawfish industry also represents what Christiansen calls the traditionalist point of view. In Louisiana many farmers practice a crawfish rice rotation where crawfish live on stubble from the previous rice crop while fertilizing the field for the next.

“Crawfish is big business around here,” says Marks. “All this Jacques Cousteau, life aquatic narrative is just an excuse to play with public money.”

As it turns out Cousteau’ grandson, Fabien Cousteau, who often went to sea with his grandfather, has come out strongly against farming fish in the open ocean. “The open pens in things like bays, especially with top predators that you feed wild-caught forage fish to get one pound of meat does not make any sense, both on a fish level and on an economic level,” Fabien said to reporter Tim Bousquet, in January 2013. Fabien Cousteau puts his weight behind projects like Fluid Farms. “...what works in the long-term, both in an environmental and economic level, as well as a popularity level, is very simple: It’s land-based, closed system, polyculture that is based around animals that are fast-growing and most likely vegetarian.

Marks and other Gulf of Mexico fisheries advocates have delivered the same message to the Gulf Council. “When they started talking about leasing the Gulf for aquaculture, we all went down there and told them why it wouldn’t work,” he said.

“Things have quieted down, we haven’t heard much about aquaculture since then” Marks said, but according to Michael Rubino, the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council is moving forward with new rules for regulating aquaculture, including a programatic, rather than project specific, environmental impact statement similar to that used in the oil industry. The Gulf of Mexico may serve as an aquaculture laboratory for other regions.

“The Gulf Council has proposed a Fishery Management Plan for aquaculture,” said Rubino, who has encouraged the Monsanto driven organization CUSP, to lobby for what they want in the plan. “It is currently under review by the Southeast Office, and the Office of Management and Budget,” he added. “Then it’ll come out for public comment.”

Rubino cites the many scientific tools being developed to bring sustainable aquaculture up to scale. “We are developing genetics models to look at escapes, and, for example, understand the impacts on red drum progeny.” Rubino declined to speculate on the profitability of the new Blue Revolution. “You’ll have to ask the entrepreneurs,” he said. “Our job is to get ready for the day we can get out there.”

Paul Molyneaux is a former commercial fisherman who has traveled around the world as a Guggenheim Fellow, chronicling developments in fisheries and aquaculture. His books include The Doryman’s Reflection and Swimming in Circles: Aquaculture and the End of Wild Oceans.

More on salmon production at these sites:
For a direct link go to: fishermensvoice.com

Norwegian Salmon
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303887804579503330588540974?KEY WORDS=seafood+consumption&mg=reno64-wsj

Norwegian offshore pen graphic
http://www.seafoodsource.com/en/news/15-aquaculture/25685-salmar-plans-pilot-offshore-farm

More from Paul Molyneaux
http://aliciapatterson.org/stories/aquaculture-moves-offshore