US Aquaculture viewpoints

"This is really a money grab and is the leading edge of the privatization of the offshore environment, the last common, truly common environment left on this earth – the privatization of the ocean. Aquaculture is the way of the future and there's definitely room for aquaculture on this coast. What there is not room for is this simple Wild West, money grubbing, economic bottom-line-only model. We need to produce food, not profit. "

- Dr. John Volpe Assistant Professor of Invasion and Fisheries Biology at the University of Alberta.

" One of the reasons that aquaculture is going to be so important for us in the future is that we have calculated that by 2025, we're going to need 4 million metric tons more seafood than we are currently consuming today, in this country. There is no way that that production is going to come from wild stock fisheries, so we're going to have to go to aquaculture. "

- Linda Chaves Aquaculture Coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

" There is real promise with creatures low on the food chain – they can be crowded, people do love to eat them, and they grow pretty fast. They eat all kinds of things. They could be fed plant material just as readily as they're now being fed fish protein pellets, and turn that plant material into good protein. "

- Dr. Sylvia EarleOceanographer, marine botanist, author and former Chief Scientist at NOAA

source: http://www.pbs.org/emptyoceans/fts/offshore/viewpoints.html