Louisiana’s fishing grounds are already under pressure from decades of oil and gas development. Now Congress is advancing a bill that could open the door to offshore fish farming in the Gulf.
I’ve been a commercial shrimp fisherman in the Gulf for more than 30 years, where my extended family and our United Houma Nation have fished for centuries. I’ve also worked in the oil and gas industry. I’ve watched corporations put profits above our safety. Pipelines have cut through and weakened protective wetlands that shield us from hurricanes and turned working families into climate migrants. Even as we push for cleanup of abandoned oil and gas wells after companies fled, the Gulf is facing a new threat: offshore fish farms.
Right now, Congress is debating the Marine Aquaculture Research for America Act, or MARA Act, a bill seeking to open the door to offshore fish farms in federal waters for the first time. The bill calls this “research.” Our communities, which have been stewarding Gulf waters for generations, don’t need experiments on our fishing grounds. What’s more, our country is not suffering from a “seafood shortage” to begin with. Yet, the Gulf is being targeted as an “aquaculture opportunity area,” so we may be first in line for these fish farms if MARA passes.
MARA’s “research” tagline makes it harder for the general public to understand what’s really happening. The bill would give the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration full authority to hand out permits and government subsidies to commercial operations. That makes it a one-way speedboat to permanent commercial finfish farms, with no clear way to shut it down if the impacts are disastrous, as they’ve been in countries that permit this practice.
Here’s what we need to ask ourselves today: Should public waters support existing ways of life and community-scale seafood systems or subsidize the worst of industrial food production in our waters? MARA supporters and opponents reflect an all-too-familiar divide: Megacorporations and their shareholders pursue profit on one side, and everyday people who care about our food, planet, communities and local economies on the other.
The main argument used to legitimize MARA — that the U.S. needs seafood security because of our “seafood deficit” — is false. Our commercial fishermen already catch more wild seafood than our country eats every year. In 2023, for example, the number landed was about 8.4 billion pounds, versus the 6.4 billion pounds eaten. On top of this, a recent study in Nature backs up what many of us on the water already know: The U.S. could meet more of its own seafood needs with better, more independent processing and local distribution and by eating a wider variety of species.
Claims about industrial aquaculture’s sustainability fall apart when you look at what it actually takes to feed carnivorous fish. In practice, farmed fish are fed a mix that still heavily relies on wild-caught fish, much of it extracted from coastal communities around the world to supply global fish feed markets. A 2024 study found that producing one pound of farmed salmon, for instance, can take two to five pounds of wild fish. And because offshore fish farms must be industrial-scale to withstand rough seas with powerful storms, these projects will likely depend on government subsidies and taxpayer-funded cleanup when disasters like a mass fish escape occur.
Congress should instead invest in the seafood systems we already have, and the deep heritage they support. Bills like the Domestic Seafood Production Act focus on timely solutions, such as supporting community-based fishermen, oyster farmers and kelp growers to improve local seafood processing and distribution. In addition, the Keep Finfish Free Act would keep offshore fish farms out of our waters, and the Destruction of Hazardous Imports Act will make sure low-quality imports don’t undercut wild-caught seafood from the Gulf.
Ultimately, the vote on MARA will determine who benefits from our waters, who gets left out and who will carry the burden of cleanup for years. Gulf communities have already been footing the bill — financially, culturally and with our health — for ongoing harms from the oil and gas boom. Let’s not repeat that with factory fish farms.