PORTLAND, Maine – President Donald Trump needs to particularly develop aquaculture production in the United States, yet a coalition of environmentalists his plan would be bad for the oceans, unnecessary for food security and difficult to implement.
Trump’s to expand fish farming is designed to fill the so-called “seafood deficit,” which refers to the fact that nine-tenths of the seafood Americans consume comes from abroad.to a federal government report.
The president issued an executive order in May that promised primary adjustments in the way the United States regulates fish farming and included provisions to drive the progression of offshore aquaculture in deep federal waters.This industry sector has yet to emerge in the United States, where top aquaculture takes position near the coast where farmers grow salmon, oysters and other popular seafood.
The Trump administration and the aquaculture industry have said that the ordinance, which is being implemented, represents common sense measures to ease the burden of regulations on fish farmers.But environmental teams said it threatens the accumulation of pollutants and the overdevelopment of the ocean at a time when many consumers are buying seafood.
“They are looking to link open water aquaculture with the need for domestic feed, but it just doesn’t make sense,” said Marianne Cufone, executive director of the Recirculation Farms Coalition, one of many environmental teams opposing the decision. ” Why we see it as a pandemic, I don’t know, I shake my head. “
The decree grants the country’s regional fisheries control councils, to which fisheries, six months to submit “actions to reduce the burden on national fisheries”.One of the stated objectives of the order is to “factor more effective permits for offshore aquaculture and further streamline fisheries regulation “with” the prospect of revolutionizing U.S. seafood production.”
The order aims to bring seafood production to the United States to keep the country dependent on other countries, said Paul Doremus, deputy deputy director of operations for the National Marine Fisheries Service of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“We are a great customer country of seafood and we may produce more of those seafood internally,” Doremus said.”This is the driving force of the decree as a whole.”
Aquaculture in federal waters is supported by some primary fish farmers, adding Cooke Aquaculture, a Canadian seafood giant.Cooke’s spokesman Joel Richardson said the order showed that the Trump administration knew that “the world wants more aquaculture to feed the world.”with salmon farms in the coastal waters of Maine.
Hallie Templeton, senior ocean manager at Friends of the Earth, said it’s not the right time to expand fish farming.Seafood is popular in restaurants and the coronavirus pandemic has caused its closure, at least temporarily.Seafood sales to restaurants fell by 90.% in the first few weeks of the pandemic.Since then, the industry has noticed an injection of CARES cash to help it recover, but it continues to struggle.
Templeton called offshore aquaculture “floating industrial farms” and said they are more likely to contaminate the marine environment than supply sustainable food.
A recent court ruling dealt a blow to the customers of fish farming at sea.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the FiveHe said in a ruling on August 3 that the federal law granted by the NOAA fishing authority allows the company to establish regulations for fish farms on the high seas.regulations that may have regulated fish farms in the Gulf of Mexico.
Environmental teams announced the court ruling because it is more difficult for farmers to start giant offshore operations that would breed species such as tuna, salmon and sea bass.
“Allowing net aquaculture and its environmental damage in the Gulf of Mexico is a serious threat, and the court correctly ruled that the government do so without a new and adequate authority from Congress,” said George Kimbrell, legal director of the Center for Food Safety.and senior suggest in the case.
The prospect of offshore aquaculture has been debatable for years.President Barack Obama also took steps to authorize deep-sea fish farming.
The aquaculture industry remains hopeful that Trump’s executive order can help pave the way for more fish farming, whether near the coast or on the high seas.Paul Zajicek, executive director of the National Aquaculture Association, said the order does not intend to eliminate regulations yet to “remove barriers to obtaining aquaculture permits” for farmers.
Some fishing equipment has also ruled on the order.Scott Mackey, director of government affairs at the Garden State Seafood Association, which advocates for fishermen and farmers, said the order “will help the industry succeed over the existing crisis and become stronger.”
Neville Crabbe, spokesman for the Atlantic Salmon Federation, a conservation group, said the federal licensing procedure deserves to create an aquaculture on land that farms fish in the ocean, let alone on the high seas.
“We don’t know how the location of this only extra production off the coast would solve disorders like diseases and parasites and other disorders affecting the industry today,” he said.
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Follow Patrick Whittle on Twitter: @pxwhittle
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