Salmon lose out to shellfish boom
The report reveals that 19,353 metric tonnes of salmon were grown in US waters in 2012, up from 18,595 tonnes in 2011, but the value of these fish fell from $104 million to $77 million, falling behind oysters ($136 million) and clams ($99 million).
Overall US aquatic farmers produced 594 million pounds of seafood in 2012, valued at $1.23 billion, and marine aquaculture production grew at an average of 8% per year from 2007-2012, mostly due to gains in marine shellfish production.
In terms of freshwater production, catfish was far and away the biggest species, with 154,296 tonnes, worth $319 million, harvested in 2012, while trout production came in at 16,432 tonnes, worth $55 million – third in terms of volume and fourth (behind catfish, crawfish and tilapia) in terms of value.
The total value of US aquaculture production now equals about 20% of the value of the country’s commercial wild catch.
