Lawsuit over FDA GMO salmon

SUBHEAD: Opponents are concerned about what will happen to wild salmon when the GMO fish reach to wild salmon.

By Chris D'Angelo on 31 March 2016 for Huffington Post -
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fda-sued-over-genetically-engineered-salmon_us_56fd75f7e4b083f5c60730bc)


Image above: An AquAdvantage Salmon is pictured in this undated photo provided. Photo by AquaBounty Technologies. From original article.

• Plaintiffs argue the federal agency overstepped its authority in approving the GMO fish.
• AquaBounty Technologies' salmon are engineered to grow twice as fast as wild species.
• Critics worry engineered salmon could prove disastrous for wild salmon populations.

Nearly a dozen fishing and environmental groups have filed suit against the Food and Drug Administration in an effort to block its recent approval of genetically modified salmon.

The plaintiffs, represented by the Center for Food Safety and Earthjustice, argue that by green-lighting the first-ever genetically altered animal slated for human consumption, the FDA violated the law and ignored potential risks to wild salmon populations, the environment and fishing communities.
“That’s one of the major risks here, is the escape of these fish into the wild,” George Kimbrell, senior attorney for Center for Food Safety, told The Huffington Post. “It could be a final blow to our already imperiled salmon stocks.”

Produced by Massachusetts-based company AquaBounty Technologies, the AquAdvantage Salmon is an Atlantic salmon engineered with genes from a Pacific Chinook salmon and a deep water ocean eelpout to grow twice as fast as its conventional counterpart.

 

The 64-page lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, challenges whether the FDA has authority to regulate genetically modified animals as “animal drugs” under the 1938 Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. It also argues the agency failed to protect the environment and consult wildlife agencies in its review process, as required by federal law, CFS said in a release.

“I think it’s important to note that FDA has gone ahead with this approval over the objections of over two million Americans in the comment period,” Kimbrell told HuffPost.

In its approval announcement in November, the FDA said it determined “food from AquAdvantage Salmon is as safe to eat and as nutritious as food from other non-GE Atlantic salmon and that there are no biologically relevant differences in the nutritional profile of AquAdvantage Salmon compared to that of other farm-raised Atlantic salmon.”



Image above: Fresh Atlantic salmon steaks and fillets at Eastern Market in Washington, D.C. in 2013. Photo by SailLoeb. From original article.

FDA spokeswoman Juli Putnamn told HuffPost in an email that as a matter of policy, the federal agency does not comment on pending litigation.

 

The lawsuit is the latest development in an ongoing and heated debate over genetically modified organisms, their safety and whether genetically engineered foods should be labeled. While proponents say the technology allows agricultural farmers to be more efficient, opponents argue they result in heavy pesticide use and transgenic contamination.

In the case of its GE salmon, AquaBounty says the fish grows to market size using 25 percent less feed than any Atlantic salmon on the market today.

But if the engineered fish were to be released into the wild — a risk AquaBounty says is eliminated by raising them on land and away from the ocean — critics worry they might outcompete endangered wild salmon for food and introduce new diseases.

“Once they escape, you can’t put these transgenic fish back in the bag,” Dune Lankard, a salmon fisherman and the Center for Biological Diversity’s Alaska representative, said in a release. “They’re manufactured to outgrow wild salmon, and if they cross-breed, it could have irreversible impacts on the natural world. This kind of dangerous tinkering could easily morph into a disaster for wild salmon that will be impossible to undo.”

Plaintiffs in the case include Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, Institute for Fisheries Resources, Golden Gate Salmon Association, Friends of Merrymeeting Bay and others.

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Farm tuna won't fly

SUBHEAD: Here are some sources of alternate opinions on advocacy of raising farmed bluefin tuna.

By Juan Wilson on 6 November 2014 for Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2014/11/farm-tuna-wont-fly.html)


Image above: An aquapod designed by Ocean Farm Technologies being prepared for deployment. From (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/04/21/3422486/big-ag-takes-to-the-ocean/).

Wild tuna are being fished into extinction by modern commercial fishing technology. The increasing demand for the fish is creating increasing competition between Japan, America and other Pacific nations.

It sure would be nice if Hawaii could grow large commercial fish like blue fin and yellow fin tuna in offshore farms? Some think so. The technical problems of raising large predators in densely populated cages are many. To name a few - food sources, waste management and healthcare are complicated and have not been solved in such a way as to be sustainable.

But advocates of tuna fish farming are moving forward in Hawaii. See the article at the bottom of this post that we got Lyn McNutt (http://www.fishupdate.com/sustainably-farmed-tuna-to-become-reality-in-hawaii/). It certainly puts the best face on a business model (farmed seafood) that has proved in most cases to be damaging to the ocean ecosystem and and unhealthy to consumers.

Fish Farm Feed
In general, the feed for farmed fish fall into two categories. For non predators, like tilapia, much of the feed is made up of GMO corn. For carnivorous fish like tuna the feed are small fish that taken in large quantities from wild sea creatures like seabirds, seals and whales.

Fish Farm Fix
The solution is to treat the fish with antibiotics and other medications. The tuna also get supplements like sex hormones to help with procreation in captivity. These chemicals not only affect the farmed tuna but nearby wild fish.

Fish Farm Feces
Farmed fish live in cages. This containment creates a concentrated waste stream that is toxic to the fish that produce it. This impairs the fish and creates health problems. It also pollutes the ocean bottom creatures.
Here are some sources of alternate opinions on advocacy of raising farmed bluefin tuna:


Farm-raised bluefin tuna spawn controversy
(http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/farm-raised-bluefin-tuna-spawn-controversy).

Bluefin Tuna And The Trouble With Fish Farms(http://indianapublicmedia.org/eartheats/bluefin-tuna-trouble-fish-farms/).

Farming The Bluefin Tuna Is Not Without A Price(http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/07/30/336339179/farming-the-bluefin-tuna-tiger-of-the-ocean-is-not-without-a-price)

Farm-Raised Tuna May Not Be the Answer to Overfishing
(http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-01-08/farm-raised-tuna-may-not-be-the-answer-to-overfishing)

This does not mean that fish farming cannot be done correctly. PrimeSeaFood.com has said:

We promote one brand of farm-raised Atlantic salmon, HiddenFjord premium salmon which is raised in the Faroe Islands (between Scotland and Iceland) and one brand of king salmon, Ora King Salmon which is raised in New Zealand.

But most "farmed" salmon can be dangerous to one's health. Just one meal a month can pose a high cancer risk.

For more see (http://www.primeseafood.com/farm_raised_salmon.html)

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Here's the article about tuna fish farming are moving forward in Hawaii.

Sustainably farmed tuna to become reality By Tim Siddons on 27 October 2014 for Fish Update  According to the United Nations Food Agriculture Organisation, most of the world’s tuna stocks are over-exploited and on the verge of collapse. Modern fishing methods used to catch tuna for canning increasingly catch juvenile yellow fin and big eye tuna before they have a chance to spawn, exacerbating the problem. Poor and simply disregarded conservation management efforts and high levels of illegal, unregulated and pirate fishing have further decimated wild caught tuna populations. Even the famed oceanographer, Sylvia Earl, no longer eats fish of any kind, stating that ‘We should think of fish primarily as wildlife, not food.’ Since 2006, Hawaii Oceanic Technology, Inc., has been on a mission to save tuna, or Ahi, as it is becoming known worldwide. The company’s goal is to demonstrate that deep ocean mariculture can help meet the world’s voracious demand for tuna, in an environmentally responsible and sustainable manner. After several years of compliance with an extensive array of regulatory requirements, the company is ready to fulfill its mission. Bill Spencer, co-founder of the company, with the help of a handful of investors, is committed to finding a way to prevent the disappearance of tuna in our lifetime. ‘Farming rather than hunting for seafood is the solution’, Spencer believes. ‘Mankind can no longer ignore the need to domesticate seafood production, and the open ocean is the best place for this to happen.’ He is further committed to farming tuna in the most environmentally sustainable manner possible. Fish farming has evolved to the point where most of the problems have been addressed. Recent evidence has shown that farming seafood in deep ocean settings results in lower food conversion ratios, faster growth, negligible environmental impact and no need for antibiotics because of reduced parasite loads and high water volumes. Spencer is intent on proving these tenets of sustainable fish farming at his company’s 250 acre (11 million square foot) ocean lease site, the largest fully permitted mariculture site in the United States. The depth at the site is almost 1,500 feet, assuring that no fish feed or other effluent from the farming activity will ever touch the ocean floor. The massive volume of water within the ocean column combined with a gentle current assures that effluent will be quickly mineralised and serve as nutrient for organisms such as phytoplankton and zooplanktons that make up the lowest level of the ocean food chain. The company is permitted to raise yellow fin and big eye tuna grown from eggs spawned in captivity and raised to fingerling size before being put in the company’s patented Oceansphere grow-out cages. Research conducted by the company over the last five years has demonstrated that yellow fin tuna can readily be spawned in captivity and that a consistent supply of fingerlings is possible to achieve. Eventually the company will grow its own tuna feed stock and formulate feed supplemented with omegas and protein from algae and other locally sourced nutrients. Assuring sustainable feed for fish farming is the company’s highest priority. ‘The misinformation on the topic of food conversion in fish farming is so pervasive that the general public is seriously confused about how efficient egg-to-plate fish farming actually is,’ Spencer contends. ‘Farmers of Atlantic Salmon, the predominant ocean farmed species, have achieved a 1:1 food conversion ratio, that is one pound of feed for every pound of growth. ‘This is because fish raised in a hatchery from eggs are weaned on highly nutritious formulated feed and do not have to scavenge for their meals.’ The same principle will be applied to Spencer’s tuna, branded as King Ahi. The tuna will be weaned on and trained to consume a highly nutritious diet that will contain some fish from sustainable stocks, but a very low amount compared to what is fed to fattened Blue Fin tuna or even wild caught tuna. Bill Spencer ‘In the wild, carnivorous species like tuna eat fish that have eaten fish all the way down the food chain, resulting in a massive food conversion ratio in terms of energy transfer’, Spencer explains. ‘This is also how mercury, PCBs and other toxins get concentrated into carnivorous species. The resulting food conversion ratio of a wild carnivorous fish can be as high as 100:1. ‘Even if one argues that it takes five pounds of baitfish for every one pound of farmed fish, it is still 20 times more efficient than in the wild. ‘To create a 10 lb mahi mahi in the wild it takes 1000 pounds of baitfish. To create a 10 lb. mahi mahi on a farm, it takes less than 50 lbs. ‘That comparison is still fairly conservative, as it does not include the by-catch involved in fishing or the higher efficiencies we see on modern fish farms. 'The implications should be clear, Spencer continues: ‘farming leaves far more baitfish remaining in the ocean ecosystem. Simply stated, farming seafood is the most efficient way to produce seafood protein. ‘Our ambition is to achieve a 1:1 food conversion ratio, which is even better than any land based protein production including chickens, pigs and cattle.’ Between Hawaii Oceanic Technology’s use of its highly efficient, high-tech Oceanspheres and operation in its 250 acre, 1,500 foot ocean column, the company is ready to prove that domesticating tuna farming is possible, practical and an imperative that must be embraced by the seafood industry.

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: Governor Wrong on Aquaculture 7/29/11
Ea O Ka Aina: Kauai Shrimp Waste Dump 3/19/10
Ea O Ka Aina: Shrimp Effluent Permit 3/12/10
Island Breath: Something Fishy 7/12/08
Island Breath: Kauai Shrimp to dump in ocean 8/21/06
Island Breath: Kauai's Crustacean Crisis 4/23/04 .


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Seattle oysters' CO2 massacre

SUBHEAD: A Washington family opens a hatchery in Hilo, Hawaii, to escape lethal CO2 poisoned waters.

By Graig Welch on 11 September 2013 for the Seattle Times -
(http://apps.seattletimes.com/reports/sea-change/2013/sep/11/oysters-hit-hard/)


Image above: Manager David Stick outside Hawaiian Shellfish, the hatchery started near Hilo by Goose Point Oyster Co. It draws water from an underground saltwater aquifer rather than directly from the ocean. From original article.

It appears at the end of a palm tree-lined drive, not far from piles of hardened black lava: the newest addition to the Northwest’s famed oyster industry.

Half an ocean from Seattle, on a green patch of island below a tropical volcano, a Washington state oyster family built a 20,000-square-foot shellfish hatchery.

Ocean acidification left the Nisbet family no choice.

Carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel emissions had turned seawater in Willapa Bay along Washington’s coast so lethal that slippery young Pacific oysters stopped growing. The same corrosive ocean water got sucked into an Oregon hatchery and routinely killed larvae the family bought as oyster seed.

So the Nisbets became the closest thing the world has seen to ocean-acidification refugees. They took out loans and spent $1 million and moved half their production 3,000 miles away.

“I was afraid for everything we’d built,” Goose Point Oyster Co. founder Dave Nisbet said of the hatchery, which opened last year. “We had to do something. We had to figure this thing out, or we’d be out of business.”

Oysters started dying by the billions along the Northwest coast in 2005, and have been struggling ever since. When scientists cautiously linked the deaths to plummeting ocean pH in 2008 and 2009, few outside the West Coast’s $110 million industry believed it.

By the time scientists confirmed it early last year, the region’s several hundred oyster growers had become a global harbinger — the first tangible sign anywhere in the world that ocean acidification already was walloping marine life and hurting people.

Worried oystermen testified before Congress. A few hit the road to speak at science conferences. Journalists visited the tidelands from Australia, Europe and Korea. Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire established a task force of ocean acidification experts, who sought ways to fight this global problem locally.

But the eight years of turmoil the Nisbet family endured trying to outrun their corroding tides offered them a unique perch from which to view debate over CO2 emissions.

And the world’s earliest victims of shifting ocean chemistry fear humanity still doesn’t get it.

“I don’t care if you think it’s the fault of humans or not,” Nisbet said. “If you want to keep your head in the sand, that’s up to you. But the rest of us need to get it together because we’re not out of the woods yet on this thing.”

To understand why the Nisbets landed in Hawaii, you first have to understand Willapa Bay.

At low tide on a crisp dawn, Dave Nisbet’s daughter, 27-year-old Kathleen Nisbet, bundled in fleece and Gore-Tex, steps from a skiff onto the glittering tide flats. Even at eight months pregnant, she is agile as a cat after decades of sloshing through mud in hip boots.

All around, employees scoop fresh shellfish from the surf and pile it in bins. Nisbet watches the harvest for a while, jokes with workers in Spanish, then clambers back into the boat.

“I’m always happy to get out here,” she whispers. “I never tire of it.”

The Nisbets were relative newcomers to shellfish.

Native Americans along the coast relied on shellfish for thousands of years. After settlers overfished local oysters, shipping them by schooner to San Francisco during the Gold Rush, farmers started raising bivalves here like crops. Now the industry in this shallow estuary and Puget Sound employs about 3,200 people and produces one-quarter of the nation’s oysters.

Kathleen’s parents bought 10 acres of tidelands near Bay Center in 1975 and started growing their own, which Dave sold from the back of his truck. Sometimes Kathleen came along.

She sipped a baby bottle and ate cookies while riding the dredge with her father. She packed boxes and labeled jars with her mother, Maureene Nisbet, and piloted a skiff by herself at age 10 through lonely channels. She keeps a cluster of shells on her desk at the family processing plant to store business cards and office supplies.

“Willapa is about oyster and clam farming,” she said. “It’s pretty much all we have.”

Her parents built their business over decades, one market at a time. They eventually pieced together 500 acres of tidelands and hired 70 people.

For a long time, business was good — until, overnight, it suddenly wasn’t.

It’s hard to imagine now how far CO₂ was from anyone’s mind when the oysters crashed.

In 2005, when no young oysters survived in Willapa Bay at all, farmers blamed the vagaries of nature. After two more years with essentially no reproduction, panic set in. Then things got worse.

By 2008, oysters were dying at Oregon’s Whiskey Creek Hatchery, which draws water directly from the Pacific Ocean. The next year, it struck a Taylor Shellfish hatchery outside Quilcene, which gets its water from Hood Canal. Owners initially suspected bacteria, Vibrio tubiashii. But shellfish died even when it wasn’t present.

Willapa farming is centered on the nonnative Pacific oyster, which was introduced from Japan in the 1920s. Some farms raise them in the wild, but that’s so complex most buy oyster seed from hatcheries to get things started.

The hatcheries spawn adult oysters, producing eggs and then larvae that grow tiny shells. When the creatures settle on a hard surface — usually an old oyster shell — these young mollusks get plopped into the bay and moved around for years until they fatten up.

Only a handful of hatcheries supply West Coast farmers, including Whiskey Creek and Taylor Shellfish, which sells seed only after meeting its own needs. So each spring, Kathleen’s parents put an order in with Whiskey Creek until the mid-2000s, when that option vanished.

“The hatchery had a long waiting list of customers and no seed, and we had a small window of time to get it into the bay,” Dave Nisbet recalled. “They had nothing.”

Whiskey Creek hatchery closed for weeks at a stretch. Production at Taylor Shellfish was off more than 60 percent. And more than just regular customers needed help.

With wild oysters not growing at all, suddenly hundreds of growers needed shellfish larvae. The entire industry was on the brink. Oyster growers from Olympia to Grays Harbor worried that in a few years’ time they would not be able to bring shellfish to market.

Nisbet made frantic calls, but could not find another source. He worked closely with Whiskey Creek, but owners there were stumped. Nisbet knew his business was in trouble.

“It’s like any other farm,” Dave Nisbet said. “If you don’t plant seed, sooner or later you don’t have crops. And there wasn’t enough seed to go around.”

In 2008, Kathleen Nisbet fretted about the prospect of laying off people her family had employed since she’d been in diapers. She feared that years of bad or no production could become the new normal.

It was really tough, as a second generation, to come in knowing the struggles we were going to have,” she said. “It’s really hard on a business when you’ve built something for the past 30 years and you have to take your business and basically cut it in half.”
But unless the family found a solution, they soon would have nothing to sell.
And no one, anywhere, could tell them what was wrong.
“I thought, ‘What are we going to do?’ ” Dave said.
Then the oyster growers met the oceanographers.


Corrosive waters rise to surface
Dick Feely, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, had measured ocean chemistry for more than 30 years and by the early 2000s was noting a dramatic change off the West Coast.

Low pH water naturally occurred hundreds of feet down, where colder water held more CO2. But that corrosive water was rising swiftly, getting ever closer to the surface where most of the marine life humans care about lived.

So in 2007, Feely organized a crew of scientists. They measured and tracked that water from Canada to Mexico.

“What surprised us was we actually saw these very corrosive waters for the very first time get to the surface in Northern California,” he said.

That hadn’t been expected for 50 to 100 years. And that wasn’t the worst of it.

Because of the way the ocean circulates, the corrosive water that surfaces off Washington, California and Oregon is the result of CO2 that entered the sea decades earlier. Even if emissions get halted immediately, West Coast sea chemistry — unlike the oceans at large — would worsen for several decades before plateauing.

It would take 30 to 50 years before the worst of it reached the surface. Oregon State University scientist Burke Hales once compared that phenomenon to the Unabomber mailing a package to the future. The dynamite had a delayed fuse.

Feely published his findings in 2008. Shellfish growers took note. Some recalled earlier studies that predicted juvenile oysters would someday prove particularly sensitive to acidification. The oyster farmers invited Feely to their annual conference.

Feely explained that when north winds blew, deep ocean water was drawn right to the beach, which meant this newly corrosive water probably got sucked into the hatchery. That same water also flowed into the Strait of Juan de Fuca and made its way to Hood Canal.

The oyster industry pleaded with Congress, which supplied money for new equipment. Over several years, the hatcheries tested their water using high-tech pH sensors. When the pH was low, it was very low and baby oysters died within two days. By drawing water only when the pH was normal, shellfish production got back on track.

“They told us it was like turning on headlights on a car — it was so clear what was going on,” Feely said.

It wasn’t until 2012 that Feely and a team from Oregon State University finally showed with certainty that acidification had caused the problem. Early this summer OSU professor George Waldbusser demonstrated precisely how.

The oysters were not dissolving. They were dying because the corrosive water forced the young animals to use too much energy. Acidification had robbed the water of important minerals, so the oysters worked far harder to extract what they needed to build their shells.

Waldbusser still is not entirely sure why acidification has not yet hit other oyster species. It could be because other species, such as the native Olympic, have evolved to be more adaptable to high CO2, or because they rear larvae differently, or because they spawn at a time of year when corrosive water is less common. It could also be that acidification is just not quite bad enough yet to do them harm.

Either way, by then, the Nisbets had moved on. They had experimented with growing oysters in Hawaii and now had their own hatchery outside Hilo.

Small fixes, big worriesDavid Stick opened a spigot from a tub that resembled an aboveground pool. He let water wash over a fine mesh screen. It was a muggy Hawaii morning and the Nisbets’ hatchery manager was straining oyster larvae.

When the tiny bivalves are big enough to produce shells, Stick mails them back to Washington. There, Kathleen’s crew plants them in the bay.

Instead of relying on the increasingly corrosive Northwest coast, the family built a hatchery that drew on something else — a warm, underground, saltwater aquifer. That water source is not likely to be affected by ocean chemistry changes for many decades, if at all.

But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing more to fear.

For now, no one else has taken as dramatic a step as the Nisbets. The Northwest industry is getting around the problem. Hatcheries have changed the timing of when they draw in water. Scientists installed ocean monitors that give hatchery owners a few days notice that conditions will be poor for rearing larvae.

Growers are crushing up shells and adding chemicals to the water to make it less corrosive. Shellfish geneticists are working to breed new strains of oysters that are more resistant to low pH water.

But no one thinks any of that will work forever.

“I do not think people understand the seriousness of the problem,” Stick said. “Ocean acidification is going to be a game-changer. It has the potential to be a real catastrophe.”

At the moment, the problem only strikes oysters at the very early stages of their development, within the first week or so of life. Once they have built shell and are placed back on the tide flats, they tend to deal better with sea chemistry changes.

But how long will that be the case? How would they respond to changes in the food web?

“The algae is changing,” Stick said. “The food source that everything depends on is changing. Will things adapt? We don’t know. We’ve never had to face anything like this before.”

An urgency to educateWith one young son, and a baby on the way, it’s been impossible for Kathleen not to think about her own next generation.

“Thank God my dad took a proactive measure to protect me,” she said. “If he wouldn’t have done that, I would suffer and my son would suffer.”

She thinks a lot about the need for school curricula and other efforts to get kids and adults thinking and learning about changing sea chemistry.

“I don’t think that our government is recognizing that ocean acidification exists,” she said. “I don’t think society understands the impacts it has. They think ocean acidification … no big deal, it’s a huge ocean.”

But the reality is, over the next decade, the world will have to make progress tackling this issue.

“We’re living proof,” Nisbet said. “If you ignore it, it’s only going to get worse. Plain and simple: It will get worse.”


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Farmed Fish overtakes Beef

SUBHEAD: In 2011, for the first time in modern era, world farmed fish production topped beef production.

By J. Larsen & J. M. Roney on 12 June 2913 fr Earth Policy Institute -
(http://www.earth-policy.org/plan_b_updates/2013/update114)


Image above: Surf and Turf with steak and shrimp. From (http://albuquerque.backpage.com/Restaurants/classifieds/EnlargeImage?oid=4000697&image=4000694).

The world quietly reached a milestone in the evolution of the human diet in 2011. For the first time in modern history, world farmed fish production topped beef production. The gap widened in 2012, with output from fish farming—also called aquaculture—reaching a record 66 million tons, compared with production of beef at 63 million tons. And 2013 may well be the first year that people eat more fish raised on farms than caught in the wild. More than just a crossing of lines, these trends illustrate the latest stage in a historic shift in food production—a shift that at its core is a story of natural limits.

As the global demand for animal protein grew more than fivefold over the second half of the twentieth century, humans began to press against the productivity constraints of the world’s rangelands and oceans. Annual beef production climbed from 19 million tons in 1950 to more than 50 million tons in the late 1980s. Over the same period, the wild fish catch ballooned from 17 million tons to close to 90 million tons. But since the late 1980s, the growth in beef production has slowed, and the reported wild fish catch has remained essentially flat. (See data.)

The bottom line is that getting much more food from natural systems may not be possible. Much of the world’s grassland is stocked at or beyond capacity, and most of the world’s fisheries are fished to their limits or already crashing.

Overstocked rangelands become obvious as the loss of protective vegetation leads to soil degradation, which at its worst can cause punishing dust and sand storms. Overexploited fisheries are less readily visible, but fishing patterns over time reveal that more effort is required to achieve the same size catch as in years past.

Boats are using more fuel and traveling to more remote and deeper waters to bring in their haul. Fishers are pulling up smaller fish, and populations of some of the most popular food fish have collapsed.

Historically, people’s taste in eating animal protein was largely shaped by where they lived. In places with extensive grasslands, like in the United States, Brazil, Argentina, and Australia, people gravitated toward grazing livestock. Along coasts and on islands, as in Japan, wild fish tended to be the protein staple. Today, with little room for expanding the output from rangelands and the seas, producing more beef and fish for a growing and increasingly affluent world population has meant relying on feedlots for fattening cattle and on ponds, nets, and pens for growing fish.

While open waters and grasslands can be self-sustaining if managed carefully, raising fish and livestock in concentrated operations requires inputs. Grain and soybeans have been inserted into the protein production food chain. Cattle consume 7 pounds of grain or more to produce an additional pound of beef. This is twice as high as the grain rations for pigs, and over three times those of poultry. Fish are far more efficient, typically taking less than 2 pounds of feed to add another pound of weight.

Pork and poultry are the most widely eaten forms of animal protein worldwide, but farmed fish output is increasing the fastest. Average annual growth rates over the last five years have mirrored the relative efficiency of feed use, with the global production of farmed fish growing by nearly 6 percent a year, poultry by 4 percent, and pork by 1.7 percent—fast outpacing beef, which barely increased at all.

As grain and soybean prices have risen well above historical levels in recent years, the cost of producing grain-eating livestock has also gone up. Higher prices have nudged consumers away from the least-efficient feeders. This means more farmed fish and less beef. In the United States, where the amount of meat in peoples’ diets has been falling since 2004, average consumption of beef per person has dropped by more than 13 percent and that of chicken by 5 percent. U.S. fish consumption has also dropped, but just by 2 percent.

Beyond economic considerations, health and environmental concerns are also leading many people in industrial countries to reduce their beef intake. Meanwhile, fish are touted as healthy alternatives (save for the largest types, which have accumulated mercury from environmental pollution). Diets heavy in red meat have been associated with a higher risk for heart disease and colon cancer, among other ailments.

Beef production has garnered a negative reputation for having a large carbon footprint and for destroying habitat, notably in the Brazilian Amazon. And excess nitrogen fertilizer applied to the fields of feed corn grown to satisfy the world’s livestock runs off into streams and rivers, sometimes flowing to coastal waters where it creates large algal blooms and low-oxygen “dead zones” where fish cannot survive.

While it is only recently that the limitations of natural systems have emerged on a global scale, the practice of aquaculture dates back millennia. China, which accounts for 62 percent of the world’s farmed fish, has long cultivated different types of carp that eat different things—phytoplankton, zooplankton, grass, or detritus—together in a mini ecosystem. Today carp and their relatives are still the mainstay of Chinese aquaculture, making up nearly half the country’s output.

Filter-feeding mollusks, like clams and oysters, account for close to a third. Carp, catfish, and other species are also grown in Chinese rice paddies, where their waste can fertilize the grain crop. This is also practiced in Indonesia, Thailand, and Egypt. (Other top aquacultural producers include India, Viet Nam, and Bangladesh.)

Unfortunately, not all aquaculture works this way. Some of the farmed fish that are quickly gaining popularity, like salmon and shrimp, are carnivorous species that eat fishmeal or fish oil produced from forage fish from the wild. Yet most forage fish stocks (think anchovies, herrings, and sardines), which typically make up about a third of the world oceanic fish catch, are dangerously overharvested.

Fish farmers are working to reduce the amount of fish meal and oil in their rations, but in the rush to meet ever-expanding world demand, the share of farmed fish being fed has increased because they can reach market size quickly.

Norway, the world’s top farmed salmon producer, now imports more fish oil than any other country. China, the world’s leading shrimp producer, takes in some 30 percent of the fishmeal traded each year.

As cattle ranches have displaced biologically rich rainforests, fish farms have displaced mangrove forests that provide important fish nursery habitats and protect coasts during storms. Worldwide, aquaculture is thought to be responsible for more than half of all mangrove loss, mostly for shrimp farming. In the Philippines, some two thirds of the country’s mangroves—over 100,000 hectares—have been removed for shrimp farming over the last 40 years.

Another problem with intensive confined animal feeding operations of all kinds, whether for farmed fish or for cattle, is not what gets extracted from the environment but what gets put in it. On a small-scale farm with livestock, animal waste can be used to fertilize crops. But putting large numbers of animals together transforms waste from an asset into a liability.

Along with the vast quantities of waste, the antibiotic and parasite-killing chemicals used to deal with the unwanted disease and infestations that can spread easily in crowded conditions also can end up in surrounding ecosystems.

The overuse of antibiotics in livestock operations can lead to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, threatening both human and animal health. In the United States, for instance, 80 percent of antibiotics use is in agriculture—and often not for treating sick animals but for promoting rapid weight gain.

Thus the solutions to our collision with the limitations of the natural systems that have long provided food have created their own host of problems. On a per person basis, beef consumption—now averaging less than 20 pounds (8.9 kilograms) each year globally—is unlikely to rebound to the 24 pounds eaten in the 1970s. But annual world fish consumption per person of 42 pounds—up from 25 pounds in the 1970s—is set to keep rising.

With the additional fish coming from farms rather than the seas, the urgency of making aquaculture sustainable is clear. On the fish feed front, fishmeal producers are incorporating more seafood scraps into their products; today roughly a third of fishmeal is made up of food fish trimmings and other by-products.

And some fish farmers are substituting livestock and poultry processing wastes and plant-based feeds for fishmeal and oil, which does not sound particularly appetizing, but does reduce pressure on wild stocks. From a sustainability standpoint, however, it would be preferable to shift the balance back in favor of farmed fish raised without feeds based on food grains, oilseeds, and protein from other animals.

Our global population of 7 billion people, growing by nearly 80 million per year, cannot escape the limits of nature. To live within Earth’s natural boundaries requires rethinking meat and fish production practices to respect ecology. Most important, it means reducing demand by slowing population growth and, for those of us already living high on the food chain, eating less meat, milk, eggs, and fish.

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Free KCC Aquaponics Exploration

SUBHEAD: Food Independence Just Got Easier: Wed Dec 7, and Sat Dec 10 

By Bernie Tsao on 2 December 2011 in Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2011/12/free-kcc-aquaponics-exploration.html)

  
Image above: A large aquaponics setup in Ensenada, Mexcio. From (https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.238116163639.137007.220988973639&type=1).  

WHAT:
Discover the secret of the latest cutting edge technology in intensive food production, 'Aquaponics'! Get a tour of a world class small-scale commercial system and a mini-scale home system. Learn about the overall basic theory and historical development of Aquaponics presented by Bernie Tsao.  

WHEN:
Two sessions: Wednesday, December 7th, 2011 @ 3:00 pm to 5:30 pm Saturday, December 10th, 2011 @ 2:00 pm to 4:30 pm  

WHERE:
 Kauai Community College, Trade Tech Building Rm#114  

CONTACT: For more information contact Bernie Tsao (bernie.tsao@gmail.com) or by phone at 808-245-9323 or 808-647-0640.

This is an opportunity for you to sign up in advance to participate in the upcoming Aquaponics training workshops offered through the OCET program at the Kaua'i Community College. These events will introduce the public to a new state-of-the-art technology for backyard food production. It is called “aquaponics” and it combines fish farming with the production of vegetables in a system that can be installed in your backyard or on your lanai. Larger systems are also available for commercial production.

The system is praised by food experts as a method of production that is superior to traditional agriculture because it produces over eight times more food per acre of space, is substantially less labor intensive, and is even producing food that is more nutritious.

Aquaponics is seen as a system that will make a major contribution to solving the world’s food shortage crisis. It is also an idea system to help Kauai, as an isolated pacific island, to reduce it’s 90% dependence on imported foods as they are now skyrocketing in price due to shipping costs and the growing demands of an exploding world population.

 The two free events at KCC will each feature an overview of this cutting edge technology in intensive food production. Each event will include a tour of a small-scale commercial system and a mini-scale home system that have been constructed on the College campus.

Each event will also provide an opportunity to learn about the overall basic theory and historical development of Aquaponics. Bernie Tsao will make the presentation regarding these systems, and he will also conduct the tour of the Aquaponics facility.

He is a graduate of the University of California with a degree in Aquatic Biology and completed additional studies in Mechanical Design and Engineering at Santa Barbara Community College. He launched the Aquaculture Technology

Training program at University of the Nations on Kona, Hawaii and served as director of the program for 11 years. He has trained and led aquaculture development teams in Brazil, Indonesia, Northern Thailand, Cambodia, Kingdom of Tonga, and Fiji and is currently conducting Aquaculture and Aquaponics training programs at Kauai Community College.

He represents the island of Kauai on the Industrial Advisory Committee at the Center for Tropical and Subtropical Aquaculture. Interested persons will have the opportunity to pre-register in advance to participate in the upcoming Aquaponics training workshops that will be starting in January at the Kaua'i Community College.

Enrollment in these popular workshops is limited and the opportunity to register will be offered first to those who participate in these free introductory events. The first phase of each event will occur in the Trade Technology Building, Room 114, for a presentation regarding the aquaponics system. The group will then be taken on a tour of the two systems: world-class small-scale commercial system and a mini-scale home system. Refreshments will be served and the public is invited to attend.

Affnan's Aquaponics

SUBHEAD: A simple plumbing system to begin growing edible plants and fish in your yard or greenhouse.  

By Affnan 30 June 2009 for Affnan's Aquaponics -  
(http://affnan-aquaponics.blogspot.com/2009/06/aquaponics-how-to-start.html)


Image above: Photo of Affnan in his yard in Malaysia. From original article.

 [Editor's note: Affnan has an extensive website (www.aquaponicsmalaya.com) and blog (http://affnan-aquaponics.blogspot.com). It's a rich resource for detailed explanation of the systems he has built and improvements he has made to them over time. There are photos, diagrams and videos of how to set up a variety of do-it-yourself systems. We discovered his site on looking for a clear and precise instruction on making a bell valve flush system. His was the best I found, even though English is not his first language. We recommend that you explore his site if you are a beginner looking for instruction on aquaponics and aquaculture. We have tried to clear up some of the difficulties Affnan had with English.]  

How to Begin
I have gotten a lot of queries on how to setup an Aquaponics System asking where, what and how to start. In this post I will try to briefly explain a very simple setup. It's important to start simple so that you learn and progress as time goes by. It is not advisable to start with complex or large system. It is also ridiculous to start with a tiny system, that is only meant for demonstration or a school project. The size of the Fish tank and Grow beds are the two determining factor in aquaponics. In theory the size of grow-bed is directly proportional to the size of fish-tank used. A 1:1 ratio is a rule of thumb, however smaller grow-bed to fish-tank is acceptable but not the other way round because there will be insufficient water available for fish.  

What Tank and Grow Bed size to use?

 
Image above: Simple 100 gallon Aquaponics diagram from Affnan's article with some extra labeling. Click to enlarge. 

 In the illustration above I have recommended a 100 gallon tank and a 2’ x 3’ grow bed. It is best to start with a simple water management system. Shown here the raised grow bed using Bell Valve Flush (see separate post on building Bell Valve http://affnan-aquaponics.blogspot.com/2011/04/mini-siphon-improving-previous-design.html). This is the easiest system to build with the least risk of things going wrong. This system can be easily adapted to use a Timed Flood & Drained systemBell Valve Flush method of water management if you don't want to build a Bell Valve.  

Simplicity to Start
I do not recommend any system with lots of moving parts, or those with a Sump Drain; the reason being the extra pump and parts is just an additional item to fail or need maintenance. It is too much for beginners to worry about. In above diagram, water is fed to the grow bed by using a single pump, estimate about 800 ~ 1200 Liter (200-300 gallons)/hr 14 ~ 20 watt power rating. Note, with a Timed Flood and Drain you can use smaller pump. The water returned to fish tank are by gravity through a pipe with aeration holes to provide oxygen for Fish Tank (see post on Bell Valve). A tiny drip hole is needed in the stand pipe on both these methods to ensure during pump “OFF” operation water are drained slowly, to promote the Aquaponics process.  

Plant Growth Media
Growth medium use normally gravel, roughly 10 ~ 20 mm (3/8"-3/4") in size, not too small and not too big. Small gravel can cause water logging and bigger medium can be difficult to handle while planting small plants. Gravel height should be about 1” above water level, or the stand pipe height initially, with time as the plant grow this water level can be adjusted lower by using a shorter stand pipe.

 Pump Timing
With the Bell Flush system, the recycling pump is switched ON continuously during the day and switched OFF at night (however it can also be run continuously 24/7). Timed Flood and Drain, uses a timer that is readily available. Most people set it at 15 minutes ON and 45 minutes OFF continuously 24/7 (with some changes to cycle during night time). I switch my system OFF at night for power saving and minimize noise, however with the pump OFF its advisable to have an separate small aeration pump running to ensure sufficient oxygen to the Fish Tank.

 What Fish to use? 

 

Image above: Tilapia being harvested from Fish Tank on 11/12/11. From (http://affnan-aquaponics.blogspot.com/2011/11/final-harvest.html).

For those that like ornamental fish, koi is a good choice, common gold fish also another option. These fishes are hardy and able to tolerate varies water condition. For those that want fish for the dinner table (like me), its depend on your area, over here in the hot humid rainy equatorial climate of Malaysia I recommend;

• Barb families
• Perch
• Mansheer
• Gourami
• Tilapia (Red Variety is best)

I don’t recommend Catfish and Snakehead, they are predator fish and also they are air breathers. The air breather like Catfish, Snakehead and Climbing Perch (Puyu) will tolerate extreme water condition, and consequently you will not learn much on how to manage water of an Aquaponics setup. However they are the easiest to get you started. Fish like tilapia are quite hardy, but they still need dissolved oxygen in the water, so using these types of fish will make you conscious of water quality and oxygen content.

 What Plants to use?


Image above: Yams planted in grow-bed have outgrown system in three months. From (http://affnan-aquaponics.blogspot.com/search/label/Aquaponics%20-%20Plant).

 Again depending on your region and whether you are using a Green house or not. Most leafy vegetable are easily grown. There are cases where carrots, beet sand radishes were grown. Tomatoes are a common vegetable for Aquaponics. On plant I leave it to your imagination.

 See also:
Affnan's Aquaponics: Constant Height One Pump System 5/4/10
Affnan's Aquaponics: Single Barrel Aquaponics 11/14/10

 .

Governor wrong on aquaculture

SOURCE: Mary Stone (maliastone@earthlink.net)
SUBHEAD: Abercrombie breaks promise and give ocean fish farms 65 year leases in Hawaii.

 By Staff on 29 July 2011 for Seafood Source -
(http://www.seafoodsource.com/newsarticledetail.aspx?id=11387)


Image above: An automated ocean fish farm module. From (http://www.eatmedaily.com/2009/08/the-future-of-fish-farming-is-giant-autonomous-roaming-robotic-cages).

The Hawaii Aquaculture and Aquaponics Association (HAAA) on Thursday commended Gov. Neil Abercrombie for signing a bill into law that will “broaden Hawaii’s rigorous leasing process” by expanding the life of leases from 35 years to 65 years.

“The permit and lease process is incredibly thorough, taking several years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to complete. It affords the state with multiple safeguards that protect the ocean and the public. Companies must demonstrate a sincere commitment to environmental responsibility to obtain necessary permits, so not just anyone can be part of this industry,” said Bill Spencer, president of Hawaii Oceanic Technology, which was recently granted a lease to farm yellowfin tuna off the coast of Hawaii Island.

Added Ron Weidenbach, president of HAAA: “Signing SB 1511 shows the state is firmly behind aquaculture to diversify and expand its economy on all islands. The bill is consistent with the governor’s goal of greater food security for Hawaii that is nurtured by growing sustainable industries compatible with our culture and our pristine environment.”

Initially, Abercrombie put SB 1511 on hold to give him and his staff more time to study the measure, particularly the environmental impacts of open-ocean aquaculture. He even considered vetoing it. According to HAAA, Washington, D.C.-based environmental NGO Food & Water Watch (F&WW) and its local affiliate, Pono Aquaculture (PA), tried to kill the bill via “misinformation and mass-form e-mails.”

But Abercrombie ended up signing the legislation on 14 July, saying he “has always been supportive of aquaculture and understands the need for long-term leases for financing purposes.” The HAAA also cited the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s new national marine aquaculture policy, unveiled in early June, as evidence that support for open-ocean aquaculture is growing.

In a letter to the editor to Hawaii’s Independent Forum, F&WW Executive Director Wenonah Hauter said: “Hawaii has failed to develop any state policy on ocean factory fish farming, conduct a cumulative study on the impacts of an expanded industry, or even set clear standards for this type of fish farming. The governor should have stuck with his original assessment of the bill. He was correct in stating that the definition of aquaculture was too broad.”

---

Take action now!  

By Staff on 28 July 2011 for Food and Water Watch - 
  (http://action.foodandwaterwatch.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=7389)

Despite all your calls, emails and petitions, Governor Abercrombie went back on his word and has allowed SB1511 to pass into law. That means ocean factory fish farms in Hawaiian waters will get 65 year leases for their operations. Governor Abercrombie should have listened to the people, not to the industry. Ask him to disclose communications that went on between his office and industry lobbyists after he announced his intent to veto. The public has a right to know, and he needs to know that we all will be watching.

 .

Tilapia farms hit on Environment

SUBHEAD: Maybe we all need to take up backyard aquaponics if we're going to keep eating this aquatic chicken. By Sami Glover on 5 April 2011 for TreeHugger - (http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/05/tilapia-farming-environmental-impact.php) Image above: Recipe using factory raised tilapia. From (http://eatathomecooks.com/2009/08/tonys-tilapia.html). Some time ago John wrote about the environmental benefits and risks of a rise in tilapia farming. While their adaptability and relatively low position on the food chain suggested an advantage over other types of fish, there was also concern about tilapia as an invasive species. Anyone reading the New York times on Monday will have been given good reason to think twice about eating this "aquatic chicken".

The Astounding Growth of the Tilapia Market Exploring the flip side of tilapia, Elisabeth Rosenthal discusses the astoundingly rapid spread of this African native that may well have been the fish that Jesus was supposed to have fed the 5000 with. With Americans eating four times as many tilapia as a decade ago, there is reason to focus on the environmental impact of large-scale tilapia farming. In fact, says Rosenthal, it may be the very adaptability of the species that has lead to it becoming such an environmental nuisance:

Native to lakes in Africa, this versatile warm-water fish was deployed by many governments in poor tropical countries around the world in the second half of the 20th century to control weeds and mosquitoes in lakes and rivers. In a cistern or pond, a few fish yielded dietary protein. In retrospect, that global dispersal "maybe was not the best idea," said Aaron McNevin, a WWF biologist who is coordinating the development of standards for tilapia farms, because tilapia "is one of the most invasive species known and very hard to get rid of once they are established." Today, wild tilapia has squeezed out native species in lakes throughout the world with its aggressive breeding and feeding.

Farmed Tilapia Less Healthful than Wild Because farmed tilapia are fed a diet of cheap grains and soy, rather than plankton, plants and algae, they also contain less healthy fatty acids than their wild counterparts. This dietary difference, of course, also reduces some of the environmental benefits associated with tilapia's position on the food chain. (Although, as noted in my post on whether aquaponics is efficient, the laws of physics mean that farming cold-blooded, aquatic animals carries an inherent efficiency in terms of feed-to-yield ratios when compared to land-based animals.)

Not All Tilapia Farms Are Created Equal Rosenthal also points out that many of the tilapia farming techniques deployed in Asia and South America—the primary producers of tilapia for US consumers—would never be allowed in the US. Most notably, the growing of fish in large open cages in natural lakes, where escapes are commonplace and fish waste is becoming a major pollutant.

Seafood Watch encourages consumers to buy tilapia from American farmers as a best choice, with Latin American fish as a "good alternative, and Chinese fish being categorized as "to be avoided". Efforts are also underway by the fish farming industry to establish tougher environmental standards, most notably in the form of the fledgling Aquaculture Stewardship Association but for now, warns Rosenthal, "there's no tilapia equivalent of free-range chicken."

Maybe we all need to take up backyard aquaponics if we're going to keep eating this aquatic chicken.

More on Tilapia and Aquaculture Tilapia as Aquatic Chicken Invasive Tilapia Threatens Fiji's Natives Is Aquaponics Efficient?

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Sea Water Farming

SUBHEAD: Stark contrast to industrial aquaculture, where they throw cheap energy on unsustainable systems to maximize profit.  

By Oyvind Holmstad on 30 March 2011 in Permaculture RI -
(http://permaculture.org.au/2011/03/30/sea-water-farming/#more-5369)

Image above: Closed loop shrimp farm where effluent goes to farmland. Still frame from "Eritria - Part 1" vedio below.

The two videos below are much about scaling up mangrove systems for sustainable sea water farming, done in a true permaculture spirit from which both people and nature benefit. Sadly this is in stark contrast to industrial aquaculture, where they throw cheap energy on unsustainable systems to maximize profit.

Today mangroves are disappearing fast. Thirty-five percent of mangrove ecosystems disappeared between 1980 and 2000, according to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Shrimp farms have been a primary cause of mangrove loss, as well as urbanization and agriculture. This is why the message from The Seawater Foundation is of such an importance, as they show how to change and provide hope for the future.
Video above: "Greating Eritria" Part 1. From (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P1rPnVUME4).

Video above: "Greating Eritria" Part 2. From (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnzIg3XdcjY).

A similar form of sustainable shrimp farming is the Chinese Gei Wai, a shallow fish pond surrounded by bunds. Make sure you get real mangrove prawns on your pizza next time you order a sea food topping!

Mangroves and other coastal ecosystems provide a lot services for humanity, among them is their capacity to capture and store CO2. Carbon sinks along the world’s coast lines, including mangroves, sea grasses, and tidal salt marshes, store massive quantities of carbon for centuries at a time, and could provide an immediate and cost-effective tool to counter the impacts of climate change.

Video above: "WWF Living Planet Report 2010 - Mangroven". From (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7Pw7TGQRMU)

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Oppose extending fish farm leases

SOURCE: Shannon Rudolph (shannonkona@gmail.com) SUBHEAD: Proposed Hawaii bill would increase ocean fish farm leases from 35 years up to 65 years. Image above: Inside fish farm off the coast of the Big Island. From (http://www.noaa.gov/features/resources_0109/images/aqua1.jpg). See also (http://www.lib.noaa.gov/retiredsites/docaqua/reports_noaaresearch/hooarrprept.htm) and (http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2010/07/29/congress-fails-to-keep-dirty-factory-fish-farms-out-of-the-gulf/). HB 568 and SB 1511, which would increase ocean fish farm leases from 35 years up to 65 years, will be heard THIS Tuesday (March 1) by the Senate Ways and Means Committee (at 9:20 am) and the House Finance Committee (at 2pm). HB 568 and SB 1511 are companion bills -- if they both pass during these hearings, they are very likely to become law. I think if we got 20 calls in to each of the committee chairs on Monday that they might take notice. From what I've been told, they aren't used to getting too many phone calls. Written testimony is also very important and due by Monday at 5pm -- the link to do that is below. Can you commit to making a phone call to each chair and getting one or two other people to as well? Chair for Senate Ways and Means: David Y. Ige 586-6230 Chair for House Finance: Marcus R. Oshiro 586-6200 Here's a short sample script: FOR HOUSE:

"Aloha, I'm calling about HB 568 which will be heard by Representative's Finance committee tomorrow. I'm opposed to it because it would extend lease terms for open ocean fish farms from 35 to 65 years, even though such operations have been environmentally damaging and could have a negative impact on tourism and fishing. It's a highly experimental industry that has generated little revenue for the state but has stretched the resources of permitting and oversight agencies. It would be premature to increase lease terms without any studies on the potential long term impacts of the industry or what it could cost the state to continue to support it."

FOR SENATE:

"Aloha, I'm calling about SB 1511 which will be heard by Senator's Ways and Means committee tomorrow. I'm opposed to it because it would extend lease terms for open ocean fish farms from 35 to 65 years, even though such operations have been environmentally damaging and could have a negative impact on tourism and fishing. It's a highly experimental industry that has generated little revenue for the state but has stretched the resources of permitting and oversight agencies. It would be premature to increase lease terms without any studies on the potential long term impacts of the industry or what it could cost the state to continue to support it."

They'll probably ask if you are going to be submitting testimony. If you will be, then you can say "Yes, I just wanted to make sure that Senator/Representative heard directly about my concerns." Written testimony can be submitted here: http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/emailtestimony/ Type in the bill number in the search box, and it will pull up the hearing date and time. Then fill out the form. You can either type directly into the comment box or upload testimony. You'll need to do this separately for each bill. Testimony doesn't have to be elaborate. While detail and supporting information carries weight, it can be as simple as:

"I'm opposed to HB 568/SB 1511 because it would extend lease terms for open ocean fish farms from 35 to 65 years, even though such operations have been environmentally damaging and could have a negative impact on tourism and fishing. It's a highly experimental industry that has generated little revenue for the state but has stretched the resources of permitting and oversight agencies. It would be premature to increase lease terms without any studies on the potential long term impacts of the industry or what it could cost the state to continue to support it."

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Small Ocean in Back Yard

SUBHEAD: Simple to build and easy to operate, aquaculture is becoming popular as small-scale sustainable intensive food production.  

By Glenn Hontz on 13 January 2011 in the Garden Island -
(http://thegardenisland.com/news/local/article_997ecef8-1e1b-11e0-a65e-001cc4c03286.html)

Image above: Aquaculture in Pago Pago, Samoa. From (http://www.spc.int/aquaculture/index.php?option=com_countries&view=country&id=1&Itemid=4).

 If you are becoming increasingly concerned about the cost and quality of the fish you are serving to your family, you have good reasons to be worried.

The nutritional quality of ocean fish and seafood is being seriously compromised due to rampant pollution and many species are facing extinction due excessive fishing practices worldwide.

Additionally, the price of all food products, including fish, has increased dramatically in the past couple of years and predictions indicate that even more increases are on the way in the months ahead.
Despite these problems, fish still represent an important source of our daily nutritional requirements. So, how can you deal with these rising prices and declining quality?

One very practical solution is to begin raising your own fish right in your backyard. If this sounds a bit crazy, it might be reassuring for you to know that backyard aquaculture is becoming one of the most popular solutions to this problem throughout America. In fact, countries throughout the Pacific and Asia have been doing it for centuries.

Want to learn how to do it? Here’s how.

Kaua‘i Community College will be offering a training program in the “Fundamentals of Backyard Aquaculture” starting on Jan. 18. This 10-session program will be conducted on Tuesdays and Saturdays from 1:30 till 4:30 p.m. at the KCC Campus Garden. The introductory session and orientation will be conducted in the Trade Technology Bldg, Class Rm 114. To register call 245-8318 by this Friday. The tuition is $300 and registration is limited.

The program is designed to teach the basic principles and procedures needed to establish and maintain a productive home-based or neighborhood- based aquaculture system. These systems provide a continuous supply of fresh healthy fish and can also be designed to additionally produce variety of wholesome vegetables.

Because these systems are simple to build and easy to operate, they are becoming popular as small-scale sustainable intensive food production system that can be done in your backyard.
And perhaps one of the most appealing features of the program at KCC is that it is designed to provide graduates with ongoing technical support as needed to achieve optimal results.

These kinds of aquaculture systems have the potential to support the need for fish production worldwide. They are a promising solution to the problems caused by over fishing, coastal development and pollution. Fish farming has also been proven to be the central linkage between agriculture, animal husbandry, and water conservation.

The course offered at KCC provides the basic training necessary to implement and manage a micro-scale fish production system integrated with an herb garden as an efficient and sustainable method to provide food.

It can also generate income as a small business opportunity adaptable to most communities.
Bernie Tsao, the principal instructor and program manager, earned a bachelor’s degree in aquatic biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and completed a program of studies in mechanical design and engineering at Santa Barbara Community College.

He launched the Aquaculture Technology Training program at University of the Nations-Kona, Hawai‘i, and served as director of the program for 11 years since 1990.

He currently teaches part-time in the Food & Agriculture Career program at Kaua‘i Community College and provides consulting on the development of aquaculture and aquaponic systems.

For more information, contact Tsao at 647-0640 or via e-mail at Bernie.tsao@gmail.com. To register call Kaua‘i Community College, the OCET Office, at 245-8318.

• Glenn Hontz, Kaua‘i Community College program director, can be reached at 246-4859 or via e-mail at hontz@hawaii.edu.