Are all benefits equal? An exploratory analysis of coastal perspectives of seafood farming expansion in the United States

Abstract

Seafood farming is heralded for its economic opportunities and its potential to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with food production. Yet the persistent lack of awareness among the US public about these potential benefits of seafood farming is often cited as a barrier to social acceptance and industry growth. We employed two exploratory online surveys of residents of western and northeastern US coastal states and a unique message‐testing approach to explore: (1) how existing opinions about seafood farming vary across sociodemographic attributes, geography, and prior familiarity with aquaculture; (2) the malleability of opinions about seafood farming; and (3) what benefits of marine aquaculture broadly and of seaweed farming specifically were viewed as the strongest reasons to support industry expansion, and what messengers are most trusted to share that information. We found that baseline attitudes about seafood farming strongly correlate with prior familiarity and that opinions about both marine aquaculture and seaweed farming were highly malleable, at least in the short term. If confirmed by further studies, our results suggest that messages emphasizing benefits in terms of environmental sustainability, as opposed to economic benefits or social benefits, may be an important tool to better engage residents of western and northeastern US coastal states with seafood farming expansion.

Dietary shifts and the need for increased sustainability approaches in the global aquaculture seafood system

“…The persistent problem is that positive attributes of seafood for health and aquaculture's contributions to environmental sustainability remain largely unrecognized by the majority of consumers who lack knowledge about the seafood farming process, and positive effects of some types of production on the environment (e.g., ecosystem services, wise use of natural resources; Jonell et al, 2016;Shaughnessy et al, 2023). Nevertheless, "familiarity with the topic" and "opinion malleability" about the aquaculture effects were positively related to more acceptance of aquaculture products after consumers were provided with brief related information (Shaughnessy et al, 2023). This is because consumers are mostly unaware of aquaculture practices but interestingly, they are willing to pay more for a farmed product after being educated about its production and possible related ecosystem services (Bolduc et al, 2023).…”

“…Since there is some evidence that the public trusts more scientists and farmers themselves as sources of the latest available information on aquaculture production and products (Shaughnessy et al, 2023), the role of collaborations between the research institutions and the industry is primordial to guide new industry actions, then inform the general public. The role of governmental institutions and NGOs are also fundamental and complementary, especially in advisory, financing, capacity building, promotion of best practices and crosslearning (Paterlow et al, 2023).…”

Supply Chain-Based Coral Conservation: The Case of Mozuku Seaweed Farming in Onna Village, Okinawa

“…Of the top five countries with high potential-Australia, Indonesia, Russia, Canada, and the United States-all but Indonesia currently produce less than one percent of global seaweed [19]. Farming seaweed is being explored in various regions across the globe, such as Europe and North America [20,21]. However, there are some obstacles, like regulatory, technical, and market-related barriers, that need to be addressed [22].…”