AN APPROACH TO DETERMINING ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF US AQUACULTURE

Fisheries Economics of the United States is produced annually by the National Marine Fisheries Service and provides national and state level estimates of the total economic impacts of US seafood landings and imported seafood on the US economy. It does not contain an estimate of the impact of US aquaculturally produced seafood. As a demonstration, we took estimates of production and value for four aquaculture species: crayfish, salmon, oysters and clams, and using published production cost data and the same input/output model used for Fisheries Economics of the United States, and produced estimates of economic impacts. We make recommendations for improving the annual production and value estimates that are used for the input/output model, and for developing standardized industry surveys on production costs so that reliable impact estimates can be developed on an annual basis and included as part of Fisheries Economics of the United States.