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US slow to embrace aquaculture

Odd Grydeland
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Opinion

Odd Grydeland

One recent report suggested that fully 47% of Americans have concerns about the activity of producing seafood in net pens and tanks, yet the country buys about 90% of all the seafood consumed there, and more than half of this comes from farms outside of the US. Go figure. Today, John Flesher of The Associated Press writes about officials from the State of Michigan that have been approached by some entrepreneurs that want to start farming fish in some of the Great Lakes waters.

This should not come as a surprise;

  • The portion of the Great Lakes that surround the State of Michigan represent some 18% of all of the world’s fresh surface water

  • There are some 11,000 inland lakes in the State

  • Michigan has about 3,100 miles (~5,000 Km) of freshwater coastline

 

But a 2014 report entitled “Innovating for the Blue Economy: Water Research at the URC” that was prepared by Alex L. Rosaen, Director of the Anderson Economic Group, LLC and commissioned by the University Research Corridor (URC), which is a consortium of three Michigan universities (Michigan State University (MSU), the University of Michigan and the Wayne State University) has only a scant mention of aquaculture: “Current research projects include expansion of aquaculture into a sustainable seafood industry (MSU)”. The report also states that there are only 8 private sector jobs within the “Water-Enabled Industry) of aquaculture in Michigan State, while other “Water Dependent Industries” provide a total of over 717,000 jobs. For the country as a whole, aquaculture provided 5,745 jobs in 2014, compared with almost 18 million jobs in the wider category.

Commercial fishing in the Great Lakes, however provides 75,000 direct jobs in an industry valued at US$7 billion (~€6.44 billion) annually.

 

Another recent report prepared by the Office of the Great Lakes, Michigan Department of Environmental Quality for the office of the Governor entitled: State of the Great Lakes 2014 didn’t even mention the words aquaculture or fish farming.

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