State Marine Aquaculture Policy

Project Motivation

Marine aquaculture in the United States is currently a relatively small seafood sector, but there is tremendous potential for growth and interest in advancing the industry through supportive federal and state policy. However, there is no comprehensive national legislation focused on marine aquaculture, and most production is occurring in state waters guided by diverse state-level policies and regulations. State and federal agencies, researchers, and industry members need increased access to state marine aquaculture regulations and policies across the U.S. to gain a better understanding of how these different policy approaches may be enabling or impeding the development of the industry.

The State Marine Aquaculture Policy Dashboard

Building Consensus Workshop Series

The “Exploring Best Practices in State Aquaculture Policy” workshop series, supported by a grant from Builders Vision, is bringing together state marine aquaculture managers, Sea Grant aquaculture extension agents, federal partners, and policy experts to learn about current trends in state marine aquaculture policy, exchange information about best practices, discuss barriers to policy adoption, and identify priorities for policy transfer between states. Two workshops have been held to date focused on aquaculture pilot programs (July 2025) and monitoring and compliance (February 2026). The third workshop focusing on the challenges associated with bird interactions with aquaculture gear is scheduled for June 9 & 11, 2026. Following each workshop, resources are generated to support continued policy development (see Pilot Permit Policy Goals & Design Elements in the sidebar).

Dashboard Expansion Project

In 2026, the project team received funding from the National Sea Grant College Program to enhance the Dashboard by expanding the geographic and substantive scope of the data. This funding will enable the team to expand the geographic coverage of the Dashboard by adding data for five U.S. territories (American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands). Additionally, the team will conduct research to expand the Dashboard’s policy breadth by adding new attributes related to the regulation of environmental impacts and benefits and farming operations.

Project Team

This project is a partnership between the National Sea Grant Law Center and the Lester Lab at Florida State University. Stephanie Otts, NSGLC Director, and Dr. Sarah Lester, FSU Associate Professor, serve as co-project leads. Research and data management support is provided by Catherine Janasie, NSGLC Research Counsel, and Lillie Bradshaw, a PhD candidate at FSU. Logistical support is provided by Lauren Fremin, NSGLC Project Coordinator. Previous project team members include Dr. Bess Ruff, Hayley Lemoine, Amy Kraitchman, and Lourdes Carreras.

For general questions about the project, please reach out to Stephanie Otts at sshowalt@olemiss.edu.

For questions about the policy attributes and associated data, please reach out to Sarah Lester at slester@fsu.edu.