Blue Ocean Mariculture indigenous Hawaiian Kanpachi farm, near Keahole Point in Kona, Hawaii, the only offshore mariculture farm in the United States.
Photo: Blue Ocean Mariculture / Cuna del Mar.
More than 420 organizations—including the North American Marine Alliance (NAMA), Inland Ocean Coalition, and Don't Cage Our Oceans—community leaders and businesses have signed a joint letter to the U.S. Congress urging lawmakers to reject the Marine Aquaculture Research for America Act of 2025 (MARA Act of 2025, S. 2586 | H.R. 5746).
In the letter, which was addressed to leaders of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and the House Committee on Natural Resources, the signatories warn that the bill would open the door, for the first time, to large-scale industrial fish farms in U.S. federal ocean waters, under what they consider to be "the misleading label of 'research'."
As reported by WeAreAquaculture, two bipartisan MARA Acts were proposed in the United States in 2025. The first was introduced in August by U.S. Senators Roger Wicker, a Republican from Mississippi, and Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii in the U.S. Senate.
Led by Mike Ezell, Republican Representative for Mississippi, with the support of Kat Cammack, a Republican too and Representative for Florida, and Democrats Ed Case, Representative for Hawaii, and Jimmy Panetta, Representative for California, the second was introduced some months later, in October, in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The letter now sent to Congress refers to the first of these, the Marine Aquaculture Research for America Act of 2025 (MARA Act of 2025, S. 2586 | H.R. 5746) which, according to its proponents, would allow the NOAA Office of Aquaculture to authorize offshore aquaculture, facilitate the approval process for offshore aquaculture operations, and create Centers of Excellence in Aquaculture, thereby promoting the growth of the sector.
In contrast, the letter now sent to Congress argued that this MARA establishes a pathway for commercial production from the outset. In the view of those who oppose offshore aquaculture, the bill would authorize long-term leases in public waters, allow private companies to build large operations designed to grow and sell farmed fish in high volumes, and lock in ongoing harms that coastal communities would be left to absorb.
Moreover, according to a release issued by NAMA, those urging Congress to reject this MARA point to "well-documented risks" of large-scale industrial open-ocean aquaculture worldwide, citing sustainability issues related to marine feed ingredients, waste management in marine farms, the spread of diseases to wild fish, or fish escapes, which they claim "disrupt local ecosystems and fisheries."
Commenting on the bill and the consequences that, in his view, it would have, Jason Jarvis, a commercial fisherman and fishing community advocate with 30 years on the water, spoke on behalf of the North American Marine Alliance, of which he is Board President.
"If the MARA Act passes, the only real 'experiment' will be on the communities that will lose access to their fisheries, the nearby marine life exposed to filth and fish viruses, the consumers who eat these farmed products and, sadly, the farmed fish themselves," he stated.
"We all depend on healthy ocean ecosystems because they help regulate the climate, produce much of the oxygen we breathe, sustain immense biodiversity, and support food webs that feed billions of people worldwide," said, for her part, Mia Glover, Program Manager at Inland Ocean Coalition.
"As the world's oceans become more and more industrialized, there will be major consequences for all of us, regardless of whether we live near the coast or not," she added on behalf of this organization that mobilizes land-to-sea stewardship across North America.
Among those which endorsed the letter—which, according to NAMA's release, included fishing groups, food advocacy organizations, conservation organizations, farmers, businesses, aquaculture producers, chefs, Tribal groups, and faith-based organizations—it was also Don't Cage Our Oceans (DCO2).
This coalition of leaders from fishing communities, seafood companies, conservation groups, chefs, and small-scale aquaculture farmers emphasized that it does not oppose aquaculture, but rather supports community-based seafood farming, such as low-impact seaweed and bivalve aquaculture, including oysters, clams, and mussels, while rejecting the industrial model.
Opposite to the letter jointly submitted by two US pro-aquaculture coalitions, Stronger America Through Seafood (SATS) and the Coalition for Sustainable Aquaculture, to Congressional committee leaders calling for them to pass the Marine Aquaculture Research and Advancement Act of 2025 last December, this new letter delivered to lawmakers by groups and leaders critical of MARA warn that some of the world's largest agribusiness, food, and drug companies, have financial interests in industrial aquaculture.
The signatories of the new letter said this model of aquaculture shifts the burden and cost of cleanup onto the public for polluted waters, fish escapes, disease outbreaks, damage to wild fisheries, and the resulting economic fallout.
Likewise, they also pointed out that, despite claims by MARA supporters that the U.S. needs these farms to solve its "seafood deficit," U.S. commercial fishermen already catch more wild seafood each year than the country consumes, citing a figure of 8.4 billion pounds harvested in 2022, compared to 6.6 billion pounds consumed.
In addition, they highlighted that a 2024 study published in Nature: Ocean Sustainability also showed that seafood independence is within reach in the U.S., especially with shifts in consumption and improvements to processing and distribution.
As the Congress is actively weighing the MARA Act, the letter signers are calling on it to pursue policies that "bolster, rather than replace," existing domestic seafood economies, citing the Keep Finfish Free Act of 2025 (KFFA) and the Domestic Seafood Production Act (DSPA).
According to NAMA's release, "these bills support working waterfronts by scaling up processing and distribution infrastructure, preventing corporate consolidation, and keeping public waters in public hands."
