WRITTEN BY JULIA BAYLY
Aquaculture in Maine is a numbers game. It’s one that’s been running for the last 40 years and in that time the industry has evolved and adapted to changes in the environment, economics, and consumer demand.
The history of the industry goes back to the 1970s when it was populated mostly by marine biologists interested in marrying their scientific knowledge to a sustainable business model.
“Compared to cod fishing or lobstering, we are not a several hundred-year-old tradition,” said Sebastian Belle, executive director of the Maine Aquaculture Association. “Most of the people who started in it were aspiring marine biologists or aspiring ecologists who believed in a responsible and efficient way to grow food and they loved the science around it.”
Over the years, those scientists were joined by commercial fishers or their sons and daughters looking for viable ways to make a living in the state’s coastal waters. Belle said the percentage of those in aquaculture who are active commercial fishers or come from a commercial fishing family has steadily increased and he sees no slowing down of that.
Since 2007, Maine has seen steady growth in this industry. The total economic impact of aquaculture nearly tripled from $50 to over $137 million. It employs over 700 people full-time at nearly 200 farms along the coast.
At the same time, it is becoming more diverse, Belle said.
“Some of these farmers may still be fishing but then they have also started a kelp or oyster crop,” he said. “Raising [aquaculture] crops in the off-fishing season provides steady, year round income for those families.”
According to the Maine Aquaculture Association, there are currently 192 licensed aquaculture farms in the state with more than 700 farmers raising a combined 25 diverse species of finned fish, shellfish, and sea vegetables.
Annual sales of those farmed seafood products reach $110 million annually and predicted growth in the industry of 2 percent a year.
About 99 percent of these farms are owned by families, with 1 in 6 farmers also holding a commercial lobstering license.
Maybe the most important numbers when it comes to the state are the environmental statistics. Pound for pound, aquaculture in Maine has the lowest carbon footprint of any animal protein raised or grown in the state.
“The leasing system to establish an aquaculture farm in Maine is one of the most strict in the world,” Belle said. “You can’t get a lease if the space will damage the ecosystem, make it impossible for the ecosystem to function, or impact any land-based ecosystems.”
Leases are also never granted in areas of active commercial fisheries.
That’s an important point, Belle said. One of the drivers behind Maine’s aquaculture industry is preservation of working waterfronts — a way of life he says is in danger here.
Up until the outbreak of global Covid pandemic, Maine was losing just under 10 percent of its population annually — mostly from rural areas.
When Covid hit, the state invested millions in upgrading internet access in rural areas. People from states with much higher real estate costs like New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts all looked northward where coastal properties — by their standards — were quite affordable.
“That flipped the demographics,” Belle said. “Suddenly starting in 2020, the population of the state was growing at 4 percent a year [and] virtually all of that was in coastal communities.”
What had been working waterfront communities were starting to see gentrification with more and more people moving in who had the luxury of working higher paying jobs from a home with a Gulf of Maine view.
That, along with other economic and environmental factors like climate change have resulted in a loss of an entire generation of the state’s fishing community, Belle said. It simply became too expensive to live on or near the waters where their parents, grandparents, and ancestors had made a living.
“The only way the current sons or daughters can make a living along the coast is to apply for an aquaculture permit,” Belle said. “It’s the most powerful tool we have to preserve maritime traditions here.”
Also helping is Maine’s ever-growing local food scene.
“Seafood is a fresh product and is highly perishable,” Belle said. “More than 80 percent of the seafood consumed in the U.S. comes from other countries.”
Maine-raised aquaculture products are attractive to fans of all things seafood, he said.
“Local products are much more dependable and safer,” Belle said. “People know it has come out of clean water and raised under some of the strictest environmental standards in the world.”
It also does not hurt that Maine’s farmed seafood is darn tasty.
Selective breeding, specialized feed, and locations all impact how specific shellfish, finned fish, or seaweed will taste. And growers work tirelessly to make sure that taste hits all the culinary notes.
Belle sees no end in sight for Maine aquaculture, especially as more growers move into increasingly specialized crops.
Seaweed, for example, has increased from 52,000 pounds harvested just eight years ago to last year breaking 1.2 million pounds harvested.
Most recently an American eel farm — the first in North America — began production in Waldoboro.
And there is plenty of room for more, Belle said.
Statewide 1,700 acres of the Gulf of Maine is currently devoted to aquaculture. That may sound like a lot, but all of that would fit in the Rockland breakwater with plenty of room left over.
Belle welcomes all newcomers.
“What we do at the Maine Aquaculture Association is work to help people find their best fit in the industry,” he said. “We are really like matchmakers.”
Aquaculture and maine marine living resources
