Offshore Fish Farms
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 The European open water aquaculture industry is fraught with a variety of major problems including rampant disease outbreaks, pollution, escapes and depletion of wild fish populations used in feed. Read more in Fishy Formula: Why the European Strategy Doesn’t Add up to Sustainable Aquaculture |
For more than a decade, our federal government has promoted and pursued plans to open our federal waters to the potentially dirty and dangerous practice of commercial-scale open ocean aquaculture.
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The Bush administration argues that this industry, which likely involves farming carnivorous fin fish in massive open net pens located between 3 and 200 miles off the U.S. coast, will increase the United States food security by developing domestic farmed seafood, rather than relying on imports. However, open ocean aquaculture can pose serious threats to human health, the marine environment and fishing communities and is unlikely to solve our seafood deficit.
Did you know that ocean factory fish farms can take seafood away from the communities that need it most?
An increased industry in the United States could worsen food insecurity in developing countries by using even more of an already dwindling prey fish population as food for farmed fish. Read more in Fish Farms May Lead to Food Insecurity.
Offshore Aquaculture Poses Environmental, Technical, and Economic Questions
The U.S. government has been pushing to open public waters to offshore aquaculture — growing fish in nets or cages between three and 200 miles from shore. However, commercial, scale open ocean aquaculture will neither ease pressure on collapsing wild marine fish populations, nor eliminate our seafood trade deficit. Fishy Farms explores the environmental, economic and technological problems with commercial, scale fish farms.