The National Aquaculture Association (NAA) is calling on the USDA Office of Seafood to recognize American aquaculture as a critical component of domestic seafood production and to ensure that the nation's seafood strategy reflects the industry's tremendous potential for growth.

We are deeply concerned that the recently released America First Seafood Strategy places overwhelming emphasis on commercial fishing while relegating aquaculture to a secondary, complementary role. This approach fails to recognize the critical role aquaculture already plays in seafood production and its enormous potential to strengthen America's domestic seafood supply, and grow rural economies.

Around the world, aquaculture has been embraced as a primary driver of sustainable seafood production and growth, while the United States continues to fall behind. Without a meaningful national commitment to support the expansion of American aquaculture, we risk surrendering even more of our domestic seafood market to foreign producers, deepening our dependence on imported seafood, and missing a tremendous opportunity to grow American farms, businesses, and jobs.

Aquaculture is not simply a complement to commercial fishing. It is a major source of U.S. seafood production, a vital part of American agriculture, and essential to the future growth of our nation's seafood supply.

Today, aquaculture accounts for 53% of global seafood production, and virtually all growth in global seafood production over the past three decades has come from aquaculture. Yet the United States continues to import an estimated 70 to 85% of its seafood, much of it farmed in other countries.

If America is serious about increasing domestic seafood production, reducing reliance on imports, and strengthening food security, expanding American aquaculture must be a national priority.

NAA strongly supports a thriving U.S. commercial fishing industry. But supporting commercial fishing and growing aquaculture are not competing objectives. Both sectors deserve meaningful recognition, equitable federal support, and policies that address their distinct challenges and opportunities.

NAA is urging USDA and the Office of Seafood to better engage, directly with American aquaculture producers, establish tangible goals for industry growth, and work with NOAA to bring the wild-caught and farm-raised seafood sectors together around a shared vision for the future.

The future of American seafood is not wild versus farmed. It is wild AND farmed.

NAA stands ready to work constructively with federal leadership to ensure that American aquaculture producers have a meaningful voice in shaping that future.

Read NAA's full letter to the USDA Office of Seafood.