The Kind of Ocean Farming That Will Help Combat the Climate Crisis
After the failures of big aquaculture, it’s time we listen to our oceans
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Fish farming has a bad reputation, for good reason. It’s built on systems that cheat nature by raising fish in unsafe conditions — often harming entire ecosystems and consumers’ health.
The farming of bivalves and sea greens is quite literally doing the opposite: Bivalves, such as mussels, oysters, clams, and scallops, along with seaweed, require zero feed, fertilizer, or antibiotics. That they generally stay put is better for ecosystems.
“Farming bivalves and seaweed is possibly the most sustainable harvest we have from the sea,” said Ryan Bigelow, seafood watch senior program manager at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
Both bivalves and seaweed filter out contaminants from the waters they consume, breathing life back into our oceans. A single oyster can filter upward of 50 gallons of water a day, which adds up exponentially when accompanied by an entire reef.
In recent years we have seen breakthroughs in fish-feed alternatives, typically composed of plant proteins, which can drive genetic manipulation and behaviors, even converting certain species from carnivores to omnivores. While this trade might seem efficient compared to land animals, like cattle, the question remains: Why aren’t we emphasizing foods with zero inputs?
“Looking back, the big mistake made was that no one looked out at the ocean and asked what’s unique about it as an agricultural space. Instead, it was driven by markets,” says Bren Smith, founder of GreenWave and author of James Beard Award-winning book, Eat Like a Fish: My Adventures Farming the Ocean to Fight Climate Change.
“The thought was, ‘people eat salmon and tuna, so let’s grow salmon and tuna.’ But that’s a wild palate. When you actually ask the ocean what to grow, it says, ‘why don’t you grow things that don’t swim away and things that you don’t have to feed. That’s what’s unique about the ocean as an agricultural space. It’s pretty simple.”
Smith’s passion for regenerative ocean farming, or what he often refers to as 3D ocean farming, wasn’t where the Newfoundland native started — as a…
