What will Donald do next? What Trump 2.0 means for aquaculture
A second Trump term may have big implications for an already growing US aquaculture sector, reports Vince McDonagh.
The United States has published its national seafood strategy with aquaculture front and centre of those plans.
The big questions remain: “What will the new Trump administration do with them – and is it seriously interested in seafood at all?”
The incoming President will no doubt maintain that his promise to “make America great again” includes the sector.
The problem with seafood is that it is such a fragmented industry, made up of thousands of separate businesses often pulling in different directions.
Tastes differ hugely from one part of the union to the other meaning that what is popular in Washington or New York will have little relevance in New Orleans, for example.
Drawing up a national policy might have been easier under a more predictable Biden-style administration, but with Trump no-one yet knows what policy will emerge or in what direction he will choose to go.
His threat to impose import tariffs poses a serious threat to Scandinavian and UK salmon importers which have until now been enjoying a sales boom. Such tariffs could lead to US consumers paying more for their salmon (if seafood is indeed included in that threat). Trump has already warned Canada that its exports will be hit, but there is reason to believe he may lay off the likes of salmon and other fish.
The industry organisation Seafood Norway believes the risk of tariffs on salmon is fairly small.
It says: “We nevertheless believe that it is good that both the Norwegian seafood industry and customers in the US are aware of the limitations that the US, as a WTO (World Trade Organisation) member, has for imposing increased tariffs.
“There will of course be uncertainty about whether trade agreements entered into will be respected, but in principle there is little that can be done other than to assume that the new administration will do this in relation to Norway.”
The real priority for America, it would seem, is to get its own industry house in order to reduce its huge 65% dependence on imports.
It has started to make progress in that direction with the recent publication of the Strategic Plan for Aquaculture Economic Development.
This has now been passed to NOAA Fisheries as part of the agency’s Draft Aquaculture Economic Development Plan, detailing support for many components and offering additional focus areas.
It outlines actions that federal agencies can take within their existing statutory authorities and budgetary resources to “support a robust, resilient, globally competitive, and environmentally sustainable domestic aquaculture sector”.
Drue Banta Winters, Campaign Manager for lobby group Stronger America Through Seafood (SATS), said recently: “Aquaculture expansion not only addresses food security needs, but also presents an opportunity to create quality jobs and reduce our reliance on seafood imports, strengthening America’s food independence.”
But until there is a clear statutory authority, aquaculture will remain hindered in the United States, she maintains.
US aquaculture is growing
Nevertheless, US aquaculture is growing at a fairly impressive rate. Recent figures show that sales of aquaculture products rose by 26% in the five years between 2018 and 2023.
The latest census shows there were 3,453 aquaculture farms with sales in the United States, up 18% from 2018.
Five states – Mississippi, Washington, Louisiana, Florida and Alabama – accounted for 55% of aquaculture sales and 49% of aquaculture farms in 2023. Food fish and molluscs were the largest product categories for sales, with catfish and oysters the top species.
It looks fairly impressive, but the prospects for growth are not the same everywhere. Too many salmon farm applications, especially around the New England states, frequently meet with local opposition when plans are submitted.
Trump himself probably has little interest in the fine planning details, but his administration is expected to act by removing planning restrictions.
He is already believed to be supportive of a bid to expand sea farming despite opposition from environmental and fishing groups. Floating cages with fish by the thousands may be operating in the Gulf of Mexico, under a controversial plan that was backed during his previous administration.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently identified five areas in the Gulf that the agency says strike a balance between the needs of the growing aquaculture industry and the potential impacts on the marine environment and elements of the seafood industry that depend on wild fisheries.
Identifying these “aquaculture opportunity areas” is part of a decade-long federal plan to open the Gulf and other offshore areas to aquaculture. The plan got a strong push from Trump but slowed under President Joe Biden’s administration.
Three of NOAA’s preferred aquaculture areas are off the coast of Texas and one is south of Louisiana. Each area ranges from 500 to 2,000 acres and could total 6,500 acres. A fifth area, considered a possible alternative, has been identified near the mouth of the Mississippi River, but it would likely conflict with shipping traffic and shrimping in that area.
Opponents say fish waste, fish feed and other organic debris that often swirl around offshore aquaculture operations will worsen the Gulf’s large “dead zone”.
While this is worrying, it is accepted that the planet’s wild fish stocks can’t meet the world’s expanding appetite for seafood alone, said Neil Anthony Sims, CEO of Ocean Era, a company that hopes to develop a floating redfish farm 40 miles off Florida.
His assertion is backed by a 2021 Stanford University study (“Blue food demand across geographic and temporal scales”, Nature Communications, September 2021) that predicted global fish consumption is likely to increase by 80% over the next 25 years.
“We can’t feed a planet with wild fish any more than we could feed a planet with wild antelope,” Sims said.
The NOAA is also considering aquaculture opportunity areas in Southern California, but opposition is expected to be stronger there than in the Gulf, where residents are already accustomed to heavily industrialised coastal waters, with thousands of offshore oil and gas structures near Louisiana and Texas and pipelines along the seafloor.
The big problem with Trump (or more precisely his advisers) is that they are unpredictable. Nonetheless, the industry, and aquaculture in particular, is excited by some of the plans now waiting to be enacted.
The US aquaculture sector doesn’t want a trade war with Europe or China, bearing in mind it is nowhere near capable of meeting domestic demand for fish.
It is going to be an interesting four years for the industry, which could bring some profound changes.
Beth Casoni, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association, probably speaks for much of the industry when she said: “I think we should be focused on feeding Americans.”
Aquaculture Opportunity Areas (AOAs)
An AOA is a defined geographic area that has been evaluated to determine its potential suitability for commercial aquaculture. NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, will use a combination of scientific analysis and public engagement to identify areas within the AOA that may be environmentally, socially, and economically appropriate for commercial aquaculture.
NOAA will take the following steps:
1. NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Sciences (NCCOS) will complete spatial analyses and publish a peer-reviewed Aquaculture Opportunity Atlas for each region in which AOAs will be identified.
2. NOAA Fisheries will use the results of the atlases to inform preliminary alternatives for consideration in its NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) analyses, with input from federal and state agencies.
3. NOAA Fisheries will consider various alternatives to identify one or more AOAs (including a “no action” alternative) and complete a programmatic environmental review under NEPA. This includes multiple opportunities for public input.
4. NOAA Fisheries will document the decision in a NEPA decision document.
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