Subsidizing planetary destruction, continued

I haven't read the entire report Fishy Farms (pdf), by non-profit consumer organization Food and Water Watch, which describes the problems created by open ocean aquaculture in the US, but here are some of its conclusions:

• Each pound of fish sold by the University of New Hampshire’s demonstration project costs about $3,000 in our taxpayer dollars to produce.

• Aquaculture will not reduce pressure on wild fish populations. The industry is already the world’s largest user of fishmeal and fish oil, consuming 80 percent of the world’s fish oil and half the fishmeal each year.

• It can take two to six pounds of wild fish to produce one pound of some types of farmed fish.

Thankfully the subsidized research still seems to be at the experimental phase. Costs to US taxpayers have so far been limited to $25 million - not much compared the billions that routinely get spent on equally damaging agricultural subsidies. Fishy Farms is summarized here.