Aquaculture

Seafood production offers opportunities for small and medium-scale entrepreneurs to make a difference in the local, and even the global, food system.

Sustainable marine and terrestrial aquaculture may render our global food system more carbon-neutral, while providing both seafood and economic opportunities to coastal and inland communities. In multispecies marine aquaculture, shellfish and seaweed are self-sustaining, requiring no feed or fertilizer at any point in the production cycle.

Additionally, coastal multispecies marine farms are zones of ecological diversity, drawing hundreds of ocean species and providing habitat for young marine organisms, increasing the ability of estuarial habitat to support life. And much like marine aquaculture, terrestrial systems such as aquaponics can be just as beneficial to the environment. Integrating fish with plant production results in a multitrophic polyculture that yields multiple products and recycles nutrients, where the waste products of one biological system, through microbial activity, serve as nutrients for a second biological system. 

Here you’ll find practical ATTRA resources that will help prospective farmers learn more about these types of production.