The Virginia Seafood Agricultural Research and Extension Center (VSAREC) has posted a comprehensive bulletin entitled “The Complex Regulatory Framework for U.S. Aquaculture.”  The bulletin describes the complex layers of the U.S. regulatory framework that U.S. aquaculture producers must navigate.

The regulatory framework for aquaculture in the U.S. has been described as one of the most stringent in the world. There are at least 29 congressional acts governing aquaculture farm operations (siting, management, and operation). The bulletin summarizes the limited literature on federal or state regulations and one notable paper that quantified the frequency of the words “shall,” “must,” “may not,” “prohibited,” or “required” in the United States Code of Federal Regulations governing farmed seafood.  Those authors estimated there were 170,000 restrictions, with almost half directed towards production-related activities. U.S. aquaculture producers for many years have pointed to overly redundant and complex regulations that have led to extensive permitting delays, high costs of compliance, closure of aquaculture businesses, and reduced competitiveness in the large U.S. seafood market.

The nine regulatory cost analyses in this bulletin found the national compliance burden in 2023 was $196 million (9% to 30% of total annual costs amongst the nine aquaculture sectors). Total annual revenue lost because of regulations was $807 million, indicating that U.S. aquaculture and its economic benefits could have been 36% greater. Overall, 43% of regulations identified on U.S. aquaculture farms were federal, 47% were state, 2% were state-enforced federal mandates, 6% were local (municipality, county, district), and <1% were tribal regulations. The regulatory cost burden has become one of the top five costs on U.S. aquaculture farms with a disproportionately greater negative effect on smaller-scale farms. Combined with revenue lost from regulatory action, the U.S. regulatory framework has contributed to the slow growth of U.S. aquaculture and significant national food security risk. In 2023, the United States imported $25 billion worth of seafood representing 80% of the seafood consumed in the United States and creating a $20 billion trade deficit.

The bulletin is a valuable tool to inform and alert the public and state and federal agencies and legislative bodies as to the extreme regulatory costs and complexities borne by the U.S. aquaculture community.

Read the full bulletin here.