Fisheries and Aquaculture

Fisheries, aquaculture, and their associated processing, retail, technology, and tourism businesses support diverse economic and cultural activities that help to define the region’s identity, support the livelihoods of people, and draw millions of visitors each year. The pressures of climate change affect current and future conditions for fisheries and aquaculture, from warming waters, acidification, and introduction of new species, to the impacts of sea level rise and extreme storms on coastal infrastructure. For these reasons, an important focus of the fisheries and aquaculture work undertaken by Maine Sea Grant is related to sustainable diversification along the working waterfront. This includes adding to what we catch or grow, broadening income opportunities for those in the seafood industry, preserving and expanding the scope of working waterfront activity, and developing new opportunities for people from diverse backgrounds to acquire the knowledge, skills, and expertise to enter the seafood industry or associated fields.

Maine Sea Grant’s research, extension, and community engagement work in this area is focused on developing and supporting sustainable and adaptive management; engaging harvesters, sea farmers, and community partners in science, monitoring, and management; and supporting efforts to help communities and industry realize direct benefits from their engagement. 

We work with our partners to enhance these opportunities for all of our constituents, including vulnerable and historically marginalized communities. We support efforts to create new or value-added products and facilitate collaboration across the seafood, non-food commercial sectors, and associated parts of the marine workforce and supply chains. Our work in aquaculture includes development of new culture techniques and target species, applied research, technical support, and efforts to facilitate communication among conservation groups, resource managers, consumers, adjacent landowners, and other community groups.

Because of the far-reaching influence of fisheries and aquaculture in Maine’s economy and culture, much of our work in this focus area also addresses seafood-related education, professional training, and science communication needs.

Our goal

Fisheries and aquaculture, their associated value chains, and the communities that depend on them, are economically viable, resilient to change, and ecologically sustainable.

Our objectives

  • Lobster
    • American Lobster Initiative (ALI)
    • Navigating the New Arctic (NNA)
      Maine Sea Grant supports lobster research that increases our understanding of the impact of ecological change on industry and the people who rely on lobster to make a living.  One example, in which we collaborate with the University of Maine’s Lobster Institute, the School for Marine Sciences, the Gulf of Maine Research Institute and other institutions, is the capacity and facilitation we provide to the multi-partner NSF-funded project called “Rapid Arctic change and its implications for fisheries and fishing communities of the western North Atlantic.”
    • Maine Innovative Gear Library and Community Engagement Program
  • Facilitation and networking with industry working groups
  • Extension
    • Group process facilitation
      Maine Sea Grant extension staff frequently provide group process facilitation for municipal, state or federal resource agency planning and management activities related to commercially and recreationally harvested marine species. Recent examples include facilitation for the Maine Department of Marine Resources’ (DMR) efforts to draft or update management plans for commercial species, an inter-agency state and federal working group supporting Atlantic salmon research and management, and a series of public Maine DMR sessions on how the public can engage in the aquaculture lease hearing process. Sea Grant extension staff also support municipalities as they conduct planning and decision-making related to efforts such as shellfish co-management and aquaculture siting. Previous Sea Grant-supported activities also include facilitation for community listening sessions with state management agencies, town planning around accommodating multiple uses of local waters by diverse coastal interests, and public engagement around marine resource-related governance.
    • Support for municipal and tribal shellfish co-management and aquaculture
    • Growing opportunities for underrepresented groups to access our programs, such as Aquaculture in Shared Waters and Aquaculture Boot Camp
  • Extension
    • Sustainable post-harvest processing and value-addition of aquacultured seaweed
    • Comprehensive seaweed business planning model
    • Aquaculture Hub
    • Direct marketing initiatives
    • RAS-N Hub (Recirculating Aquaculture Salmon Network)
    • Seafood marketing roundtable
  • Research
    • Food Safety Guidelines for seaweed harvest and handling in Maine
    • Sustainable post-harvest processing and value-addition of cultured seaweed
    • Extension-led aquaculture applied research/tech transfer
      Maine Sea Grant’s work in this area is diverse and continually evolving, as needs arise and change. In recent years it has included working to engage industry members in applied research and extension related to new culture practices or species, and new product development, as well as creating learning opportunities for producers, such as one-on-one technical transfer and site visits, workshops targeted for small groups, and conferences. 

      Maine Sea Grant staff also support planning and engagement related to direct marketing initiatives, a quarterly seafood marketing roundtable discussion, and industry-led efforts to develop seafood cooperatives, or other collaboration within and between geographic regions or sectors.