Annual wild fishery capture levels have remained stable since the mid 1980's at around 90-93 million tons, yet global demand for seafood has continued to rise at an astonishing rate. With the surging demand for seafood, aquaculture has had to fill the gap and meet consumer demand. In 1980 just 9 percent of the fish consumed by humans was farm raised. Today that figure has grown to a staggering 43 percent. That is 45.5 million tons of farmed fish consumed each year. (FAO 2006) The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations predicts that an additional 40 million tons of seafood will be required by 2030 just to maintain current levels of consumption. This will only be possible through aquaculture.

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Aquaculture has been the worlds fastest growing food production system for the past decade (FAO). Near shore marine cage farming, particularly salmon farming has made tremendous technological advances and efficiency gains over the past few decades. However, opportunities for expansion to suitable sites are limited, partly because there are many conflicting uses for near shore, protected coastal waters.

Open ocean aquaculture will take advantage of one of mankind's last great frontiers and untapped resources. Environmental impacts are not significant because of the deep water and strong currents. Fish health is also improved because of the continuous flow of pristine open ocean waters that are not impacted or influenced by land and land based activities. Open ocean aquaculture represents one of the best alternatives to meet the growing demand for high value fish.

Unique in the world, Snapperfarm is one of three companies that commercially grow high value fish in an open ocean, submerged cage environment. The others are Cates International, Inc. and Kona Blue Water Farms, Inc., both located in Hawaii. Snapperfarm provides a natural and healthy environment for the fish, with minimal effects to the surrounding ecosystem by growing Culebran Cobia™ in submerged cages with strong currents and in deep water more than two miles from the shoreline. Snapperfarm has an exchange rate in each cage of over 1,000 times per day which equates to over 2 billion liters of crystal clear, clean Caribbean seawater flowing through every cage every day. Over the past four years, NOAA has funded two detailed environmental studies at Snapperfarm's farm site. Both were conducted by the University of Miami and University of Puerto Rico and both proved that there is no significant environmental impact from Snapperfarm's operation. The reports are available on the "Snapperfarm's R&D Activities" page. Additional studies are ongoing.

Snapperfarm uses high quality diets with ingredients from sustainable sources. Roughly half of the diet fed to Culebran Cobia™ is protein and of that roughly half is grain based protein and the other half is fishmeal. The fishmeal used in Snapperfarm's feeds comes from managed fisheries.

Articles Related to Open Ocean Aquaculture

American Fisheries Society, December 2006

Popular Science - The Farmer Goes To Sea, March 2006

Wired Magazine - The Bluewater Revolution, May 2004

The Economist - Blue Revolution: The Promise of Fish Farming, August 2003