aquaculture

Farmers in Vietnam's southernmost province, Ca Mau, in the Mekong River delta, intentionally pierced four dikes erected against saltwater encroachment so they can convert rice paddies to seafood ponds. It was an illegal move, "but we just want to breed prawns to escape poverty," farmer Nguyen Thi Bi told Xinhua news agency as she stood on the edge of a newly created aquaculture pond.

U.S. fish farms are producing only one-quarter as many catfish this year as they did when the industry peaked in 2002, according to USDA data. The decline has been blamed on higher feed costs, a change in consumer tastes, and imports from Asia.

Global per-capita fish consumption surged beyond 20 kilograms (44 pounds) in 2014, thanks to the booming aquaculture industry in China and elsewhere, according to a report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture organization.

The new World Trade Outlook Indicator (WTOI) will "provide 'real time' information on trends in global trade," said its parent agency, the World Trade Organization. Launched ahead of the meeting of G-20 trade ministers in Shanghai over the weekend, the indicator showed trade in raw agricultural products was growing faster than expected while overall, global trade would continue to be sluggish in July and August.

Expanding U.S. fish farming could boost consumption of essential fatty acids, as Americans eat just half the American Heart Association’s recommended 3.5 ounce bi-weekly fish servings, panelists at the Capitol Hill Ocean Week conference said.

Fish farms are hurting species diversity downstream, says a study out of Novia Scotia, the first of its kind in Canada. The study found that the number of different benthic invertebrate species -- small creatures like mayflies and caddisflies that live in the silt at the bottom of waterways -- was significantly lower downstream from fish farms than previous counts, according to the CBC.

Hatchery-raised fish show dramatic alterations in their DNA from wild fish in just one generation, says a new study published in Nature Communications by Oregon State University.

For Huey Johnson, the "grand old man" of environmentalists in California, "the idea of rearing salmon in fallowed rice fields started in a duck blind," says Yale e360. Surrounded by acres of flooded fields, Johnson wondered what could be done with all the water. "His answer: Grow fish."

"The future of Maryland seafood was born aground, in a hand-made aquarium rigged with a couple of five-gallon buckets from Lowe's," begins Madeleine Thomas, in a special report at Grist on the potential for aquaculture to...

Lockheed Martin, "the world's largest defense contractor," has launched a series of series of initiatives tied to climate change as a potential threat to national security," reports the Washington Post.

Idaho accounted for 52 percent of the $102.5 million worth of trout sales in 2014, up from 42 percent in the preceding year, said the USDA's annual Trout Production report.

The U.S. farm sector usually discusses Cuba in terms of possible growth in sales to a nearby market, although trade is limited by the trade embargo enacted during the Cold War.

Deputy of Agriculture Undersecretary Al Almanza told lawmakers the White House is likely to release in April a long-delayed regulation to put the USDA in charge of catfish inspection, says Agri-Pulse.

Fish farmers will need to double production of finfish and shellfish by 2050 to meet projected demand for fish, says a report by the World Resources Institute.