Leaving seafood on the table: Pilot pathways a missed opportunity for U.S. mariculture

Marine aquaculture in the United States has faced substantial development hurdles that have limited the industry’s contributions to the nation’s domestic seafood supply. Federal attempts to address these impediments to industry growth have not fully resolved these hurdles, leaving much of the onus of development on individual states. Because changes in policies, regulation, and legislation to better enable marine aquaculture development take extensive effort and time, targeted strategies that work within existing management frameworks can and should be utilized to address development challenges at a smaller scale while waiting on larger institutional shifts. Here, we make the case specifically for state authorization of pilot farming schemes, an approach that allows for the trialing of marine aquaculture operations within a limited spatial and temporal scope. While we argue that pilot frameworks can improve the economic, operational, and ecological feasibility of marine aquaculture, we also posit that they can support diversification across the industry, from participants to culture methods, bolstering industry resiliency.