World Aquaculture Magazine - September 2021

WWW.WA S .ORG • WORLD AQUACULTURE • SEP TEMBER 2021 41 • Mandates would improve accuracy but could face resistance. • Specific data needs must be clearly defined and coordinated across jurisdictions. • There is increased farmer resistance to publicly reporting financial data of potential value to domestic and foreign competitors. • Data requirements for farmers must be simple, streamlined and attainable within farm staff capacity and technology limits or with adequate support to add capacity as needed. • Buy-in from the farming community, states and agencies will be critical for maximum success. • Most of the proposed solutions will require some capacity support (e.g., staff, training, access to technology, enforcement, etc.). • It is easier to mandate reporting for farming in shared public spaces (the commons), which is where most marine aquaculture occurs, than for farming on privately owned land. All of these considerations are important and none of them are insurmountable. Some of the solutions proposed are already in use by some states or for some marine species. Leveraging a combination of existing and proposed technological and policy solutions in the US can improve marine aquaculture data quality and consistency. These efforts will be critical to ensure farmers have the resources they need to address, adapt and recover from systemic shocks. They could help build confidence among agency staff to grant permits in a timelier manner and allow them to better understand, monitor and adapt to environmental changes to support sustainable production. Better data can also help build understanding and comfort with policy makers and broader audiences to improve social license and political will to responsibly grow and expand marine aquaculture as part of a more sustainable and resilient domestic seafood portfolio in the US. Notes Kimberly Thompson, Aquarium of the Pacific, kthompson@lbaop. org (Corresponding author) Luke Gardner, California Sea Grant Halley E. Froehlich, University of California, Santa Barbara Sarah E. Lester, Florida State University Rebecca R. Gentry, Florida State University References Froehlich, H.E., J. Couture, L. Falconer, G. Krause, J.A. Morris, M. Perez, G.D. Stentiford, H. Vehviläinen and B.S. Halpern. 2021. Mind the gap between ICES nations’ future seafood consumption and aquaculture production. ICES Journal of Marine Science 78:468-477. https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsaa066 Gephart, J.A., H.E. Froehlich and T.A. Branch. 2019. Opinion: To create sustainable seafood industries, the United States needs a better accounting of imports and exports. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116:9142-9146. https://doi. org/10.1073/pnas.1905650116 Lester, S.E., R.R. Gentry, C.V. Kappel, C. White and S.D. Gaines. 2018. Opinion: Offshore aquaculture in the United States: Untapped potential in need of smart policy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115:7162-7165. https://doi. org/10.1073/pnas.1808737115 Mikkelsen, E., L. Fanning, C. Kreiss, S.L. Billing, J. Dennis, R. Filgueira, J. Grant, G. Krause, D. Lipton, M. Miller, J. Perez, S. Stead and S. Villasante. 2021. Availability and usefulness of economic data on the effects of aquaculture: ANorth Atlantic comparative assessment. Reviews in Aquaculture 13:601-618. https://doi.org/10.1111/raq.12488 van Senten, J., C.R. Engle and M. Smith. 2020. Impacts of COVID-19 on U.S. aquaculture, aquaponics, and allied businesses. Journal of the World Aquaculture Society 51:571-573. Solution Policy Actions Integrate marine aquaculture data into an existing data collection platform (see Fig. 2) Mandate the integration of aquaculture data into chosen digital platform Provide capacity support and resources (e.g. staff, training, access to technology, enforcement, etc) for state agencies to adopt the new data platform Establish minimum reporting requirements Provide capacity support for agencies to establish a participatory framework to build trust with farmers to collect data and enforce reporting requirements (e.g. staff, training, technology, etc) Provide incentives for farmers to comply (e.g. expedited permit renewals, increase access to disaster relief funds, etc.) Facilitate interagency collaboration Mandate or leverage MOUs to facilitate interagency collaboration to reduce redundancies and improve efficiencies in data reporting requirements. Agencies should also collaborate to define/identify specific data needs for effective management for a given state Provide staff capacity support for agency collaborations Increase funding to support improved reporting and data collection Direct funds to support these efforts at federal and state levels as appropriate: • Digitizing data and collection at state level • Identifying and clearly conveying specific data needs • Building capacity • Technology adoption programs • Industry-independent data collection • Research on benefits of better data reporting FIGURE 3. Policy solutions and actions identified by workshop participants.