The world is getting hungrier for fish. Fish consumption has outpaced population growth, but the volume of ocean fishing has remained relatively flat for three decades. Fish farming—or aquaculture—has made up the difference, with production more than doubling between 1997 and 2019. Today, aquaculture provides about half of the world’s seafood.
This growth is not the trend in the United States, which relies instead on imports for more than 80 percent of the seafood its population consumes. According to a report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), aquaculture production could increase dramatically in the United States. But to do so, Congress will need to reform the nation’s ocean permitting system, the CRS concludes.
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