News and Resources

PHOTO COURTESY OF: OPEN BLUE 

By: Virginia Gewin

April 20, 2017 — Editor’s note: This story was produced in collaboration with the Food & Environment Reporting Network, a non-profit investigative news organization.

Harlon Pearce walks muck-booted past processors gutting wild drum and red snapper to showcase a half-full new 5,000-square-foot (500-square-meter) freezer he hopes will someday house a fresh boom of marine fish. Harlon’s LA Fish sits just across the railroad tracks from the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, perfectly positioned to ship fish out of Louisiana.

As president of the New Orleans–based Gulf Seafood Institute, seafood supplier Pearce is a big fish himself in these parts, connected to fishermen, federal agencies, restaurateurs and even the oil industry. He knows better than anyone that wild fisheries alone can’t supply U.S. consumers’ growing demand for fish. Which is why he’s doing his best to bring everyone to the table to achieve one goal: farming the Gulf of Mexico.

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SEAFOODSOURCE.COM

By Cliff White, Editor
Published on Thursday, September 01, 2016

A collaboration between Mexican governmental agencies and marine aquaculture firm Earth Ocean Farms is aiming to improve the plight of the totoaba, an endangered fish valued in Asia for its supposed medicinal properties.

Officials from Mexico’s Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) and National Commission of Aquaculture and Fishing (CONAPESCA) released 15,000 totoaba hatchlings raised at Earth Ocean Farms into the Sea of Cortez on Thursday, 25 August, with the goal of recovering the depleted numbers of the species. The public restocking event took place in the Santispac Beach, Bahia Concepcion, Mulege, Baja California Sur.

According to Earth Ocean Farms, the totoaba (Totoaba macdonaldi) is an endemic species to Mexico that was once abundant in the waters of the Sea of Cortez and is now being bred and cultivated in a sustainable manner by the company, which has a hatchery and farms located in La Paz.

“This restocking project is part of an innovative plan for the recovery of the totoaba, create jobs, and diversify the state’s economy,” the company said in a press release.

Mexico’s Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources Rafael Pacchiano Alamán said in a statement he was encouraged by the collaboration between government and industry on behalf of the environment.

Read the complete article at SeafoodSource.com >

The Orange County Register

By Julie Watson / The Associated Press 

SAN DIEGO – Some 90 percent of seafood consumed by Americans is imported – a fact that the Obama administration vowed to start turning around by expanding fish and shellfish farms into federal waters.

Yet nearly two years since the first permit was issued, the United States still has no offshore farms.

The pioneers of offshore aquaculture say their plans have stalled or been abandoned because of the long and expensive federal permitting process that requires extensive environmental monitoring and data collection.

The applicant given the first permit for federal waters in 2014 has spent $1million and not seeded any mussels off Southern California. Another pioneer in Hawaii said there is too much red tape and plans to start his fish farm off Mexico and export to the U.S.

Meanwhile, investors are leery to jump on board with no offshore farms in the water.

“Those jobs could have been in the U.S., the investment could have been in the U.S., but there was no way I could talk to my board of investors when there are no clear regulations set up and the monitoring burden is so ridiculous,” said Neil Sims, CEO of Kampachi Farms.

“I’m now practicing my Spanish,” said Sims, who received his permit for pens off Hawaii. He had hoped to develop a commercial operation to raise sashimi-grade Kampachi fish but plans instead to put his farm off Mexico’s Baja California peninsula next year.

He said the Mexican process was rigorous but streamlined.

Federal officials say the red tape is partly because it’s a new frontier. There is no regulatory framework for federal waters. They say the process needs to be streamlined while maintaining environmental standards.

Nearly half of the imported seafood Americans eat comes from foreign farms, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

A draft of NOAA’s five-year strategic plan calls for marine aquaculture production to jump 50 percent by 2020, and expanding into federal waters is key. Crowded coastlines with recreational boats and shipping routes are limiting growth in state waters.

Read the complete article from the OTCRegister >