AN ANALYSIS OF ONE BILLION DOLLARS OF AQUACULTURE GRANTS MADE BY THE UNITED STATES FEDERAL GOVERNMENT FROM 1990 TO 2015  

 David C. Love*, Irena Gorski, Jillian P. Fry
Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future
Department of Environmental Health Sciences
Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University
615 N. Wolfe Street, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
* dlove8@jhu.edu

While the United States (U.S.) contributes only a small portion to global aquaculture production, it has made significant public investments over the past few decades into aquaculture research and extension, which support industry development. Federal programs and policies have played a significant role in moving the field of aquaculture forward, in part by awarding internal and external research grants to federal agency staff, academic institutions, companies, and non-governmental organizations. Examples of federal grants programs include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) Saltonstall-Kennedy and Sea Grant grants, U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture grants, National Science Foundation grants, and Small Business Innovation Research grants.

This presentation will discuss the findings of an analysis of nearly 3,000 aquaculture grants awarded by 10 federal agencies from 1990 to 2015. Adjusting for inflation, federal agencies have awarded over one billion dollars to aquaculture projects over the past quarter century, with the USDA and NOAA as the lead agencies overseeing aquaculture. After reviewing summary statistics such as federal aquaculture grants by aquatic organism class (Table 1), we will discuss patterns in domestic aquaculture funding over this time period, by federal agency, location, discipline, and aquatic organism family. We will put these trends into context by comparing funding patterns with federal agencies' strategic plans that describe priorities and focus research funding. Finally, by analyzing past research activities, we hope to identify opportunities for future research, research funding, and policy.