S6E4: What does the future hold for Maine aquaculture?
Aquaculture is a growing industry in Maine. It yields more than $100 million in overall economic impact each year, nearly three times as much as the $50 million it contributed in 2007. Farmers and businesses in working waterfronts support themselves and the economy by cultivating Atlantic salmon, oysters, seaweed and many other aquatic flora and fauna. Despite the increased consumption of seafood harvested from Maine waters, the industry faces several hurdles to further expansion. Most Americans consume fish from overseas, and many wild-caught populations are in severe decline and danger of collapse.
The Maine Aquaculture Roadmap, 2022–2032 was created to help tackle the challenges the state aquaculture industry faces and identify resources to support it. In this episode of “The Maine Question,” Heather Sadusky, marine extension associate with Maine Sea Grant and coordinator for the Maine Aquaculture Hub, and Deborah Bouchard, director of the University of Maine Aquaculture Research Institute, describe this 10-year plan to bolster the industry.
Transcript
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Heather Sadusky: I envision aquaculture being really embraced by Maine and by its coastal communities and by the places where aquaculture is taking place and people being proud to have oyster gardens in their municipal waters and to have sustainable seafood in their backyards. As part of your community, I envision it like small‑scale farms and farmers’ markets but for seafood.
Ron Lisnet: That’s Heather Sadusky, Coordinator of the Maine Aquaculture Hub, which is part of UMaine’s Cooperative Extension, giving her vision of what she hopes the aquaculture industry becomes in Maine. I’m Ron Lisnet, and this is “The Maine Question” podcast.
Fisheries and seafood of all kinds have been a defining feature of Maine in all kinds of ways, providing business opportunities, jobs and serving as a cultural milepost for our state pretty much since the very beginning. The same can be said for many states across our country.
Despite that fact, you may be surprised to learn that the US is a net importer of seafood. Actually, roughly three‑quarters of all the seafood we eat comes from overseas. Adding to that, many of our wild‑caught fisheries are in severe decline. Several iconic and sought‑after species like tuna, swordfish, shrimp and others are in danger of collapse.
How do we thread this needle, feeding the growing demand for seafood, saving the resource and the environment where they grow? One answer, farm those fish. Aquaculture or fish farming is on the rise, but it’s barely scratched the surface of what is possible. From 2007 to 2014, the industry almost tripled in size.
Maine has a coastline that stretches 3,000 miles, but less than one percent of that is dedicated to aquaculture. The aquaculture roadmap is a 10‑year plan created by Maine Sea Grant, and an industry group, the Maine Aquaculture Association on behalf of the Maine Aquaculture Hub.
It details those opportunities and identifies the obstacles to expanding the types of fish, shellfish, and other species that are farmed. It was developed with feedback from some 150 stakeholders representing nearly 100 organizations and companies who operate in Maine’s marine or blue economy. What’s the future of fish farming?
Heather Sadusky and Deb Bouchard, the director of the Aquaculture Research Institute at UMaine, share their vision for that future on this episode of “The Maine Question.”
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Ron: Thank you both for joining us. Interesting topic and a lot happening in your field I’m sure. Maybe let’s start with this. Let’s define the term. What is aquaculture? How long has it been around? How long has it been around in Maine? Deb, you want to handle that one first?
Deb Bouchard: Aquaculture’s actually been around since 500 Before Christ. It’s been around for a very long time. In Maine, it’s actually been around since the 1800s. There have been laws on the books since then for dealing with aquaculture.
Essentially, it can be defined as the breeding, rearing, and harvesting of fish, shellfish, and aquatic plants in all types of water environments for food production. Also, people don’t often think of this. Aquaculture is also for conservation, restoration, and fishery stocking programs.
Ron: We see that in Maine with trout and salmon.
Deb: Maine’s Inland Fish and Wildlife Department has had a restoration and stocking program since the 1800s and still runs eight hatcheries today, primarily for trout species.
Ron: Heather, what does the growth curve look like? What role or what percentage does it play in the overall seafood industry in Maine?
Heather: Aquaculture is really expanding as a contributor to Maine’s marine economy, and in particular, seafood production. As Debbie mentioned, we’ve got over 700 limited‑purpose aquaculture license sites across the state. Since 2014, our harvest from all these sites has more than doubled in value and in volume.
One really neat number is that oysters alone were valued at over nine million‑dollar in 2019. That made them the fourth most valuable commercial species coming out of Maine. That’s the most recent data we have from 2019, pre‑pandemic. Nowadays, we have even more farmers coming online.
Ron: What does the growth curve look like? Is that headed up?
Heather: Yes, absolutely. Maine’s aquaculture sector is steadily growing over the past probably decade or so. We’ve got a real variety of species as well, which is exciting. We’ve got finfish aquaculture. We’ve got mussels, kelp, oysters, scallops. The opportunities are really starting to grow for the sector as a whole in the state.
Deb: Can I add to that as well?
Ron: Sure.
Deb: While the predominant species that we culture is Atlantic salmon, we still are moving very quickly in shellfish species and in seaweed. In fact, if you look at the number of what we call limited‑purpose agriculture leases, from 2011 to 2020, those increased from 44 LPAs to over 700. I want to put that into perspective.
With 3,000 miles of coastline in Maine, aquaculture farms only used 1,700 acres [laughs] of the ocean. Also, of those over 700 limited purpose aquaculture leases, over 700 take up only eight acres.
Ron: A tiny percentage.
Deb: Right. We clearly have the room to grow this industry for our own food security and healthy aquaculture products.
Ron: How unique is Maine in terms of its industry? Is Maine set up really to do this kind of thing?
Deb: I would say yes, both with our natural resources, freshwater abundance, and our marine environment. Right now, we do culture over 24 aquacultured species. We are attracting the larger investments of land‑based industry.
Again, the species include a variety of shellfish, seaweed. In our land‑based, of course, it will be Atlantic salmon. We’re moving into eel production and yellowtail fish.
Heather: I’d agree with Debbie. We have the resources for aquaculture here in Maine. That’s what brought me to Maine in the first place as well, was that aquaculture is happening here. To Debbie’s point, we have this extensive coastline. Only a tiny fraction of it is currently being used for aquaculture.
There’s certainly opportunity to utilize it for seafood production, but also, for restoration projects for blue‑green infrastructure. There’s a lot of opportunity here in Maine.
Ron: A lot of people would find it surprising to know that despite the numerous fisheries we have, both wild and farmed, that in the US, we import the bulk of our seafood. How is that possible? What kinds of seafood are we bringing in from overseas?
Deb: If you look at recent reports, the United States imports 70 to 85 percent of its seafood. That’s in finfish, shellfish, and all the varieties of seafood. Nearly 50 percent of that imported seafood is now aquaculture‑produced.
Driven by imports, the US seafood trade deficit is really close to $16.9 billion. That was reported in 2019. Although the US fresh and saltwater aquaculture production is worth around 1.2 to 1.5 billion dollars, we still ranked 16th in aquaculture production globally.
Ron: Heather, so there’s room for people consuming fish in the United States, for that ability to provide for ourselves. There’s certainly room to grow there, right?
Heather: Exactly. As Debbie mentions, we are already consuming aquaculture seafood. It’s just coming from other countries. That’s part of some initiatives at the federal level. To produce our own domestic seafood. Aquaculture is exactly the type of solution that’s going to enable us to increase it.
Our wild‑caught fisheries are essentially maxed out. If we’re going to be producing any more seafood, it’ll have to come through aquaculture.
Ron: Maine’s Sea Grant leads what’s called the Maine Aquaculture Hub. Can you tell us why this hub was formed and what it’s been working on? Heather, that’s probably one for you to field.
Heather: Sure. The Maine Aquaculture Hub was developed in 2019. That’s when I came on board. It was developed with the intention to support the aquaculture sector and help address barriers to strengthening aquaculture in Maine and start looking ahead to a sustainable future for aquaculture.
We have become a network for doing so and have a handful of activities. There are three primary ones that I’ve been working on. First is an aquaculture training program geared towards new sea farmers and existing to help them get past the startup level. Second, is an RFP.
The past two years, we’ve run a call for proposals, specifically intended to fund industry‑led projects. Third is this roadmap. Over the past few years, we’ve been holding stakeholder focus group meetings to get everybody’s input on what they want to see, in terms of the future of aquaculture in the state of Maine.
That roadmap was recently released just this year.
Ron: Deb, that just came out. How do you think it’s going to be used by the industry?
Deb: I think I would let Heather answer this one. Obviously, though, the industry had a tremendous amount of input into this, as we held over 10 stakeholder workshops for getting feedback from the industry. Let’s see what Heather says. [laughs]
Heather: In terms of utilizing the roadmap, as Debbie mentioned, it was a super collaborative process to get input in developing the roadmap and what it was going to include, which is four goals, each with a number of different action items.
When it comes to implementation, the way we envision it is that, yes, industry will use it, the aquaculture sector, but also, all of the other voices and organizations that were present and helped participate in building this roadmap.
We’ve got action items spelled out with the organizations that would be most applicable, most relevant for taking on that action item, as well as resources listed that would be required to take on each item. We definitely envision it being a group effort. That when it comes to utilizing and implementing it, we’ll definitely need multiple partners.
Ron: The way aquaculture has developed, it’s probably a little bit all over the map, in terms of companies starting up, not coordinating, or that kind of thing. This gives everybody…Gets them on the same page, so to speak.
Heather: The idea is definitely to build a blueprint. That’s why we’re calling it a roadmap. Outlining what it is that all of these voices, everybody collectively would like to see. Then, building in the steps for how to get there.
We’ve got the four overarching goals. Goal one, develop a streamlined licensing and permitting process that balances the rights of an applicant in the public. Goal two, increase integration or standing of aquaculture in Maine’s coastal communities. Goal three, expand and promote the Maine seafood brand.
Goal four is overall, to make Maine a leader in triple bottom line sustainable aquaculture. Each one of those includes aquaculture producers, includes government departments, includes research institutes, nonprofits, municipalities. All these types of people will definitely have to be involved. They have been so far.
Like you said, aquaculture’s starting to touch a lot of different groups, a lot of different people.
Ron: Deb, can you talk about the positive effect that aquaculture can have on wild cod fisheries? Can it do something to alleviate pressure on certain fisheries?
Deb: What I would report is that aquaculture has been the world’s fastest‑growing food production system for decades. Today provides over double that of wild capture fisheries for human consumption. If you look at any of the graphs that they put out, natural fisheries has straight‑lined now.
Aquaculture is continuing to grow. It’s definitely alleviating the pressures on natural fisheries.
Ron: There is a lot of research going on here at the University of Maine in any number of areas. Talk about some of the research going on and what might be coming down the road. Are there any initiatives that you think are going to come to the forefront or are going to grab headlines moving forward?
Deb: In the last two years, we’ve developed a strong partnership with the USDA Agricultural Research Service to highlight our research capabilities in finfish and shellfish. For finfish, it’s primarily involved with Atlantic salmon. It’s allowing us to touch on the…or address the priorities globally that the industry is asking for.
Part of that is the University of Maine is going to be working on finfish nutrition and alternative proteins, which is definitely needed for sustainable aquaculture.
Also at the Darling Marine Center, the USDA partnership supports work on growth studies to support selective breeding efforts and carrying capacities for models for shellfish aquaculture, particularly with oysters and scallops.
Then UMaine is also involved in multi‑state research initiatives, looking at the new and emerging recirculating aquaculture systems industries. This is allowing us to engage with the industry and address the bottlenecks for research that they’re pointing out to us.
Ron: Heather, maybe you can talk about the roadmap. Does it touch on some of these other issues that are out there? Workforce development, recruiting people to go into the industry, working with the indigenous populations in Maine. As Debbie mentioned, the nutrition advances, too.
Heather: Absolutely. We have a couple action items that speak to each of those, particularly in goal number four. A big one is workforce development because that will be necessary if the sector is to grow stronger and more resilient. As our marine economy shifts, it’ll be important to have that workforce.
We have a number of training programs across the state. There are efforts underway to coordinate those and make sure we’re serving the right needs. What do farmers need help with on the farm? Where do they need workers? What can we offer in terms of training?
Debbie might be able to speak more to involving indigenous populations. I know she’s been involved with some of that.
Deb: The Gulf of Maine Research Institute a few years ago did a project where they looked at the aquaculture industry workforce needs. Also, with the Maine Aquaculture Association. Came up with industry competencies of what they wanted to see for workers.
At UMaine, we developed a micro‑credentialing probe program, where we can take on lifelong learners and people who aren’t matriculated students to learn the core essentials of aquaculture in order for them to address the industry’s needs.
With that, we think of equity across the board too for all of our communities in Maine, of which we have four tribal communities. We recently put in for a USDA grant, which is a Research Extension and Education undergraduate program.
This in particular is going to reach out to indigenous communities across the country. It’s going to take a different look, looking at Western science versus indigenous science and combining the two. The indigenous communities across the globe have been doing aquaculture for far longer than the new more modern aquaculture that we see.
Ron: One of the challenges, and I think you touched on a little bit, is nutritional advances. What do you feed the fish that feed us? Can you expand on that a little bit more, in terms of are you looking for alternate sources of feed for the fish that are farmed?
Deb: No. A lot of your high‑value aquaculture fish are carnivorous fish. They eat essentially other fish. As you know, fish meal is part of that product. As the demand for protein increases and our natural fisheries is depleted, we have to come up with other alternatives of protein. We’re looking at algae. We’re looking at insect meals.
We’re looking at all of those things and their effect on the growth of carnivorous, especially a high‑value fish like Atlantic salmon. Even that and also with larval stages of aquaculture species, larval feed development is very important, we have a researcher here that does micro encapsulations. We’re beginning to target the real roadblocks to a sustainable finfish industry in that regard.
Heather: I will know note that here in Maine, we have a lot of aquaculture with species that are unfed. Shellfish don’t require any feed. They’re filter feeders, and so they extract all the nutrients they need from the water, from the seawater. They’re actually cleaning the water as they feed. Seaweed is the same way.
You don’t have to really feed it anything. You don’t have to fertilize it. Not only are they unfed, sustainable species in that sense, but they’re also providing ecosystem services for the surrounding environment.
Ron: Heather, what’s the Maine brand around aquaculture and the products? Is there work being done to better communicate that brand and just communicate better about the industry as a whole?
Heather: Yes. I love this question because the Maine brand is really strong. I mean, Maine is iconic for a lot of reasons. That certainly translates to seafood. I mean, everyone across the entire world knows about Maine lobster. Aquaculture is lucky enough to benefit from that Maine brand, but it’s also really contributing to that Maine brand.
We’ve got incredible aquaculture seafood products coming out of our state, and people know it. It’s recognized across the country and it’s recognized globally. As aquaculture grows, and as we produce more sustainable seafood this way, that’s very much part of the mission is communicating that to the end consumer.
Letting people know that this isn’t just a Maine oyster. This was grown in the cold, clean waters off Maine’s coast and it helped the surrounding environment while it was growing. All these benefits and attributes are certainly part of what we’re doing when it comes to working with farmers on marketing and getting the word out to consumers, outreach, and education.
Letting people know that there’s a lot more to it than just seafood on your plate.
Ron: The Maine brand, I think, is sometimes under‑appreciated, and hopefully that changes. Finally, just a question for both of you. We always ask this in these podcasts and always get interesting answers. Paint us a picture, as this roadmap if it’s followed as you hope it will be, what will aquaculture in Maine look like 10 years down the road?
Are you hopeful about the future prospects for this? Whoever wants to go first.
Heather: I’m super hopeful. I envision 10 years from now, I envision aquaculture being really embraced by Maine, and by its coastal communities, and by the places where aquaculture is taking place. People being proud to have oyster gardens in their municipal waters, and to have sustainable seafood in their backyards and as part of your community.
I envision it like small‑scale farms and farmers’ markets, but for seafood, the marine version. I’m really hopeful and I think that with all the partners that are named in the roadmap, that’s definitely a possibility. I think it’s feasible that we can get there.
Ron: Deb, we’ll give you the final word.
Deb: Well, I’d like to think that we have the best of all worlds with Maine’s environment in our coastal waters. We have small players. We have the small farmers and we have the larger players that are coming on.
I’d like to see that the recirculated land‑based farms that are coming in, that they develop well and that they’re successful providing a lot more food security for the United States. The fact that we’re not importing fish anymore. We’re actually producing it for our communities throughout the United States.
I’d like to see that there be, in 10 years, that there is a diversity of the type of farms we have and that we’re a thriving sustainable aquaculture industry.
Ron: Let’s hope that all happens. We appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us.
Deb: Thank you.
Heather: Thanks for having us.
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Ron: Thanks for joining us. You can find all our episodes in a bunch of places Apple and Google podcast, Spotify, Stitcher and SoundCloud, UMaine’s Facebook and YouTube pages, as well as Amazon and Audible. Drop us a note if you have a question or comment. Our email address is mainequestion@maine.edu.
This is Ron Lisnet. We’ll catch you next time on The Maine Question.
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Transcription by CastingWords