NOAA Fisheries Seafood Strategy

NOAA Fisheries Seafood Strategy

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The NOAA Fisheries Seafood Strategy and the accompanying Implementation Plan were developed following NOAA’s implementation of President Trump’s 2020 Executive Order Promoting American Seafood Competitiveness and Economic Growth. They focus on the commercial fisheries and aquaculture components of NOAA Fisheries’ work to sustainably manage marine fisheries and produce seafood responsibly. Both the overall goals and the implementation actions align with NOAA Fisheries’ core mission work, including scientific surveys, assessments, and support for regional councils and commissions. This work complements other NOAA efforts that address the impacts of environmental changes, market disruptions, and new ocean uses on U.S. fisheries. 

Our vision is to ensure that:

• U.S. seafood continues to be produced sustainably
• The U.S. seafood sector contributes to the nation’s climate-ready food production and to meeting critical domestic nutritional needs
• U.S. seafood production increases to support jobs, the economy, and the competitiveness of the U.S. seafood sector
• Supply chains and infrastructure are modernized with more value-added activity in the United States
• Opportunities are expanded to grow the size and capacity of the seafood workforce

We plan to achieve our vision by focusing on four goals:

• Goal 1: Maintain or increase sustainable U.S. wild capture production
• Goal 2: Increase sustainable U.S. aquaculture production
• Goal 3: Foster access to domestic and global markets for the U.S. seafood industry
• Goal 4: Strengthen the entire U.S. seafood sector

Implementing the NOAA Fisheries Seafood Strategy

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Implementing the NOAA Fisheries Seafood Strategy relies on strong partnerships and collaboration. The actions listed in the Implementation Plan emerged from extensive consultation with participants in the U.S. seafood industry and interested constituents. More than 150 individual comment letters were received during the public comment period on the draft Seafood Strategy, many of them containing recommendations for specific actions. In addition, the agency held formal listening sessions and other meetings with state agencies, tribes and other indigenous communities, industry members and associations, councils and commissions, and other constituents to gather recommendations on action items. The majority of actions included in the plan are those that are possible given current budget resources and staffing capacity. We also included aspirational activities recommended by partners and constituents to highlight important areas of future growth, should additional resources become available.

Implementation Actions

To meet the goals of the strategy, NOAA is taking a whole-of-government approach. Ongoing actions include: 

• Industry services such as our international trade support, loan and grant programs, seafood inspection, aquaculture research and development, and identifying other ways to increase domestic production and support market development
• Socio-economic analyses including economic snapshots of regional seafood sectors, cost, regional economic impact analyses
• Inter-agency coordination on issues such as workforce development, infrastructure needs such as reshoring processing, seafood trade analyses 

Full details can be found in the Implementation Plan. 

Pilot Initiatives

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NOAA Fisheries is building partnerships to collaboratively implement a small number of cross-cutting pilot initiatives, subject to capacity. Several NOAA Fisheries programs will work alongside other federal, state, territorial, local, tribal and other indigenous groups, industry, university, and NGO partners to tackle cross-cutting issues. Actions listed below may be funded with current resources or be aspirational. Initial examples (with other pilot initiatives to be determined) include:

Alaska Seafood Resilience

• Analysis of the market, economic, and geopolitical drivers affecting Alaska seafood production and trade, and the effects on Alaska seafood businesses and communities
• Technical assistance to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for seafood purchase programs (ongoing)
• Certifications facilitating exports of seafood products (ongoing)
• Engagement with other federal agencies (ongoing)

Gulf of America and South Atlantic Shrimp Industry Resilience

• Industry/constituent meetings led by Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission and the Louisiana and Texas Sea Grant programs
• Stakeholder mapping
• Socio-economic analysis
• Engagement with other federal agencies

Port of Port Orford, Oregon Resilience

Support of the Port’s plans to create economic and job opportunities and enhance the availability of nutritious seafood to the region and in an economically distressed community.

• Socio-economic analysis (aspirational)
• Engagement with other federal agencies (new FY24 action)

Pacific and Atlantic Highly Migratory Species (HMS) Fisheries Resilience

Support for expansion of capture, processing, and consumption of HMS in the face of industry contraction and potential movement in species availability due to climate change.

• Exempted fishing permits (ongoing)
• Coordination with councils and industry partners (ongoing and new action for FY24)
• Industry validation of dynamic ocean predictions (new)
• Socio-economic analyses (aspirational)
• Coordinated communications (ongoing)