Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, fellow panelists and Honorable Commissioners.

I would like to thank the Commission for the foresight of having a panel dedicated to aquaculture. I also appreciate your asking the U.S. Aquaculture Society, a chapter of the World Aquaculture Society, to be represented on this panel.

My name is Dr. Bill Daniels and I am the president of the U.S. Aquaculture Society. This presentation has been developed in collaboration with Dr. Craig Browdy, the president of the World Aquaculture Society.

The World Aquaculture Society has nearly 2,300 members from 91 countries and has formal agreements with numerous aquaculture associations. The U.S. Aquaculture Society has 700 members. These represent academia, government agencies and industry.

Today, I would like to emphasize how important seafood policy and aquaculture are to the U.S. in relation to our economy, to our food security and to our food safety. I would also like to emphasize why the development of marine aquaculture in the U.S. is in our national interest and requires integration into a national ocean policy.

Seafood has a significant impact on our economy, particularly our trade deficit. The U.S. is the world's second biggest importer of fish and fishery products.

Overall, in 2000, the U.S. imported more than $10 billion in seafood. That’s $1 billion more than 1999. It exported $3 billion in seafood, leaving a trade deficit of $7 billion. Currently among all natural resource products, seafood is the second largest contributor to the U.S. trade deficit after petroleum.

Seafood has a significant impact on our food security. Imports come from over 60 countries. Just as we depend on other countries to supply our petroleum, we are depending more and more upon other countries to supply our food.

In 2000, roughly 45% of U.S. seafood consumption came from imports. It is estimated that Americans will eat an additional one billion pounds of seafood (or just over 11 billion pounds) in the year 2025. As demand for seafood in the U.S. increases, we have two options 1) grow or catch more ourselves or 2) increase our dependence on others to provide it.

Seafood has a significant impact on our food safety.

Dependence on overseas production can lead to dependence on others guaranteeing food safety and quality and requires increased monitoring by U.S. authorities. You must remember that other countries do not necessarily follow the same guidelines as U.S. producers and processors and may not put as much emphasis on food safety and quality control.

Similarly, use of drugs, herbicides and pesticides is strictly regulated in the U.S. Other countries have far more chemicals approved for use or have limited ability to regulate their use in food production. For example, chloramphenicol has been detected in imported shrimp from Asia and is a major concern.

The value of aquaculture products sold in the U.S. grew from $45 million in 1974 to over $978 million in 1998. The major marine species account for less than 10 percent of this. The total U.S. aquaculture is only 2% of the world production.

While marine capture fisheries have historically accounted for more than 80% of the world’s fish supply, they are not keeping pace with the demand for seafood. Fish remains the only important food source that is still primarily harvested from the wild rather than farmed. This cannot continue. As U.S. farmers have reduced the amount of farmland required to produce food by intensifying production and increasing efficiency, so must U.S. aquaculturists. The U.S. must choose between being an importer and an exporter of seafood.

As with all human activities, aquaculture has social, economic, political and environmental impacts. These impacts (both positive and negative) should be considered within the context of other activities, particularly alternative methods of supplying the increasing demand for seafood and other fishery products. In most cases, aquaculture production will be less intrusive than wild harvests and other human activities.

As a relatively new industry in the U.S., aquaculture has come under intense scrutiny. This is particularly true for marine aquaculture. However, in general, impacts from marine aquaculture are localized, reversible, and per unit of product compare well to all other kinds of food production. Integral to successful and sustainable aquaculture production are proper planning and management.

When you leave this building tonight, I would ask each of you to look around and answer a few questions.

1. What did Seattle look like prior to man’s arrival?
2. Has the landscape and ecosystem changed since then?
3. What impact has the continued development of Seattle had on the environment and the native flora and fauna?
4. As a human activity, is it an acceptable use of the natural resources?

With proper planning and site selection, I purport to you that aquaculture has far less impact on the environment than most other human activities. It is not only an acceptable use of our natural resources; it is a necessary one.

Increasingly, aquaculture products are being produced in other countries to target the large U.S. seafood market. Unhampered by the degree of regulation that the U.S. aquaculture industry faces, these imported substitutes have driven prices down and caused economic damage in many communities in the U.S. When U.S. consumers pay lower prices for imported aquaculture products that are produced in countries with less restrictive regulations, they run the risk of encouraging greater environmental harm to our oceans. Aren’t the ‘costs’ of managing our own impact less than the costs of risking the security of our seafood supply and economic costs of a rising trade imbalance?

Integration of aquaculture into coastal management can contribute to improvements in selection, protection and allocation of sites and other resources for existing and future aquaculture development. Coastal zones are characterized by ambiguities of resource ownership and complex interactions among resources, ecosystems and resource users. To address these complexities and provide sustainable development, a framework needs to be developed.

A marine aquaculture policy must be flexible and responsive to industry changes, with simplified, well-coordinated regulatory processes and technically competent staff.

Research is vitally important. Many of the challenges faced by the aquaculture industry and most of the potential negative impacts can be eliminated by developing the proper technologies and by understanding how aquaculture interacts with the surrounding ecosystem. Unlike terrestrial farming, which has a limited number of animals being grown, aquaculture includes a diversity of species, many of which have only been studied for a few years.

Aquaculture industries must also play a role by embracing the world’s best practices and developing codes of practice that minimize potential negative impacts.

Much of the development and implementation of a national policy requires a forum for discussion and dissemination of scientific knowledge and technologies. The U.S. Aquaculture Society provides an appropriate venue for a balanced discussion.

Let me conclude by saying that marine aquaculture IS in the national interest of the U.S. and REQUIRES integration into a national ocean policy.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I have left two copies of Aquaculture and the Environment in the United States for your review.