By Melissa Deng*
In my experience, when discussing strategies for combating food insecurity, the conversation often starts with land. However, discourse around aquaculture, defined by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as “the farming of aquatic organisms, such as fish, shellfish (bivalves and crustaceans)…and aquatic plants,” has increased amidst concerns of commercial overfishing and finding sustainable protein sources. As the aquaculture industry continues to grow, fueled by expectations that industrial aquaculture could be the innovative food practice that solves our protein source woes, so does the need for regulation. Without comprehensive federal regulation of aquaculture, the growing concerns surrounding aquaculture’s practice––including antibiotic use, pollution, and deleterious impact on wild gene pool––may continue leaving the emerging industry in troubled waters.
Aquaculture regulation sits in a unique position within federal regulation. While there is the National Aquaculture Act of 1980, there is no federal statute that specifically regulates how different agencies coordinate their regulation of aquaculture. Instead, federal agencies like the FDA, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulate parts of aquaculture that fall under their purview, along with other agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The National Aquaculture Act of 1980, did however establish what is now known as the Subcommittee on Aquaculture that comprises member representatives from the FDA, USDA, EPA, and NOAA, and the Subcommittee develops plans that envision coordinating and implementing agency action. However, there is a lack of data regarding whether the plans that the Subcommittee of Aquaculture regarding agency coordination have actually been implemented or not.
All these agencies have great things to say about aquaculture. The FDA touts aquaculture as “restor[ing] threatened and endangered species populations and sustain[ing] wild stock populations, and habitat restoration.” Moreover, the FDA states that aquaculture seafood, like wild-caught seafood, can be a great source of proteins and omega-3 fatty acids. The USDA claims that aquaculture’s “development can help meet future food needs and ease burdens on natural resources.” The EPA notes that “aquaculture is a nascent industry that deserves further research and local investment – this is just the beginning.” Other federal agencies like NOAA proclaim that “aquaculture supports a sustainable earth” in line with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals by tackling food insecurity, advancing technology, and creating economic opportunities.
So then why all the concern about “farmed fish” lately? Well, not everyone agrees with the FDA and other federal agencies’ heralding of industrial aquaculture, and here is where the cracks in the existing regulatory framework begin to show. This issue is apparent with concerns about the use of antibiotics and other drugs in aquaculture; pollution in waterways; and disease transmission and other negative impacts on wild fish populations’ gene pools.
The use of antibiotics and other drugs to treat fish in aquaculture farms has been highly controversial. Because aquaculture farms often employ antibiotics to reduce disease among often crowded fish populations, consumers of fish from these farms could be consuming antibiotic residues. Some residues have been associated with heightened risk of anemia, allergies, and even cancer. This consumption, apart from potentially having harmful effects on humans from the outset, may also further antimicrobial resistance––or bacteria gradually becoming resistant to antibiotics, such as those used to treat human illness.
What has the FDA said? The FDA noted in a guidance on aquaculture drugs that because of the diseases associated with aquaculture, as well as the potential amplification of disease outbreaks among close-proximity fish in farms, approved drugs are needed “to treat, control or prevent disease” and “to control parasites.” But while the FDA acknowledges that there is the potential of antimicrobial resistance and deleterious impacts to human health from the use of drugs in aquaculture, it is careful to shift the blame of such hazards to “the use of unapproved drugs or misuse of approved drugs.” But does it have the capacity to investigate offlabel use and target offenders? Warning letters to aquaculture industrial entities have yet to be issued, leaving open the question of whether the FDA actively takes measures to investigate, even reactively, or if it believes that certain issues are under the purview of another agency. Given the FDA’s infamous history of inaction toward regulating antibiotics in farm animal feed, it may be a while before the FDA does more than just acknowledge the risks when it comes to aquaculture.
In a similar vein, there is increasing apprehension about pollution from untreated aquaculture wastewater being released into the environment. Such contaminated water can cause eutrophication, or excessive algal growth that causes loss of oxygen in waterways, and in turn the death of the organisms within it. This issue would appear to fall under EPA’s jurisdiction, and indeed the EPA acknowledges “pollutants of concern for agriculture” and distributes National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits––which most aquaculture facilities are required to obtain––to manage the discharge of pollutants.
Some agencies have more overtly recognized the risks of aquaculture, particularly when it comes to the impact on wild fish populations. NOAA acknowledges that there are risks of having aquaculture farms in a marine environment where “water moves freely between farms and the ocean,” including that disease can be transmitted from farmed fish to wild fish, which would go against the earlier idea of aquaculture actually protecting endangered populations and sustaining wild populations. And because aquaculture nets cannot perfectly sequester the farmed fish from the wild fish, farmed salmon, for example, “often escape into the environment and join the already weakened wild salmon population,” thereby damaging the wild salmon gene pool. But even though NOAA is concerned about these risks, there is a fundamental issue of fractured responsibility among agencies: for example, would this be the responsibility of NOAA through its Fisheries office, or is it an EPA issue because it involves an issue with a net-pen facility?
The potential overlap of responsibility between the FDA, USDA, EPA, NOAA, and other federal agencies quickly becomes apparent, as does the possibility of diffusion of responsibility, fragmented oversight, or disagreement over policy. Rather than provide a comprehensive framework where nothing gets missed, there may be an increased likelihood of something falling through the cracks, depending on how the problem is framed. Agency coordination and a more concrete unified interagency decisionmaking process, building on the framework already established by the Subcommittee on Aquaculture, may help ameliorate these issues and allow agencies to cast a wide net of regulation while ensuring that nothing slips past. In addition, this comprehensive federal framework could provide a guiding path for state laws. At present, each state has its own set of laws regulating aquaculture, leading to a patchwork regulatory federal-state framework that oftentimes is left to the states to dually enforce.
Industrial aquaculture may be at a crossroads. A study published in 2025 argues that aquaculture’s “contribution to global protein demand remains minimal, projected to decline to as low as 4% in the coming decades.” Is there a way to sustainably build up the aquaculture industry in a way that maximizes human and environmental safety––especially without a comprehensive federal statute to regulate it? Unless there is more defined coordination of all of these administrative agencies’ aquaculture responsibilities in a comprehensive federal legislation, the future of industrial aquaculture may remain adrift.
*Melissa Deng is a recent graduate of UCLA School of Law and was the 2024–25 Co-Chair of the Food Law Society. You can find Melissa on LinkedIn here.
On Food Law 