ishing is going out of style—at least on a global scale. The world’s fishing fleets have been decreasing since 2019, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. In contrast, the fish farming industry has been growing. In 2022, the number of farmed fish in the world finally surpassed that of wild-caught fish.

“Farmed fish” encompasses a variety of cultivated seafood. It can involve breeding and releasing red king crab until the wild population rebounds, growing shellfish or finfish in controlled environments, or a dozen other practices. Hatcheries are the only legal form of finfish aquaculture in Alaska; all other fish farming is forbidden.

While the number of farmed fish is growing, it’s not a new practice. There is evidence that the Chinese farmed fish more than 2,000 years ago, according to the Wilson Center. The National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA) states that farmed fish is “one of the most resource-efficient ways to produce protein.” Proponents of fish farming claim that it is more sustainable than wild-caught fish because raising fish in a regulated environment avoids overfishing and other environmental harms, unlike fishing on the ocean.

The reality of the situation is more complex.

While certain types of farmed seafood are reliably safe and sustainable—such as farmed seaweed, mussels, and rainbow trout from the United States—the standards of fish farming can vary drastically within different countries, according to a spokesperson from the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch.

“Generally speaking, US-based aquaculture is well regulated and performs well against Seafood Watch standards for environmental sustainability,” the spokesperson states.

However, most of the seafood in the United States is imported. The United States imports most of its farmed fish from China, such as freshwater tilapia, according to trade reports from NOAA Fisheries. Seafood Watch warns against eating Chinese fish for multiple reasons: the habitat the fish are raised in and concerns about chemicals, diseases, and environmental damage.

Even friendly countries can have problems. Seafood Watch reports that consumers should avoid almost half of the salmon from Norway and most salmon from Chile, the United Kingdom, and Canada—the four largest salmon farming countries in the world. In Chile, from where around half of US-imported farmed fish originates, farmers rely heavily on antibiotics to control bacterial diseases.

Still, the fish farming industry is expected to continue grow, according to the US International Trade Administration. One of the most popular farmed fishes in the world is salmon, and this competes directly with wild Alaska fisheries.

“In a complex, diverse, and global category like seafood, farmed fish and seafood definitely competes with Alaska, and other wild seafood, throughout,” says Greg Smith, communications director at the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI).

Farmed salmon makes up roughly 75 percent of the global salmon market, and that number is expected to increase, according to ASMI’s April 2024 Economic Value Report.

“The most direct, and largest, competition from farmed seafood would be with salmon. Notable regions with significant farmed salmon production include Chile, Norway, and New Zealand,” Smith says. Alaska pollock and cod also compete against farmed tilapia and pangasius, also known in the United States as swai or Asian catfish.

Foreign fish farms are not the only concern.

NOAA Fisheries reports that fish farming makes up around 7 percent of domestic seafood production by weight and almost 25 percent of seafood production by value. The majority of this—more than 80 percent—is in the form of mollusks. As for finfish, $66 million worth of Atlantic salmon was farmed in the United States in 2018, for example.

Alaska’s interest in preserving wild seafood—both in the ecosystem and as a share of the market—has raised political alarms. Representative Mary Peltola, for instance, is including language prohibiting offshore aquaculture permits in legislation that would otherwise fund competitive grant programs to increase processing capacity for farmed shellfish and seaweed, as well as for wild caught fish.

Raised apart from their wild cousins, farmed fish are not entirely isolated. Even though farmed fish is often sold as a “sustainable” alternative to wild seafood, the farming process still has its downsides.

For starters, farmed fish need to eat, and farmed species usually eat other fish. Thus, millions of tons of low-value fish, such as sardines and anchovies, are made into fish meal for the sole purpose of feeding farmed seafood, Seafood Watch states on its website. This can put pressure on wild populations and contribute to overfishing. According to the Wilson Center, this already happened decades ago when China overfished its own waterways.

It is possible to raise certain fish with mostly plant diets—catfish, tilapia, and carp are notably non-carnivorous. However, most of the lucrative fish on the market, such as salmon, are carnivores and need that extra protein.

Feedstock aside, farms can pose other threats to the environment.

“[Farmed fish] is banned in the state of Alaska because it hurts our wild fish populations by reducing their survivability, causing disease spread, and polluting water with antibiotics and other chemicals,” according to Peltola’s office.

Most finfish are farmed in netted off sections of the open ocean. This puts them in proximity with wild populations—and makes it easy to catch diseases, according to NOAA Fisheries. Wild fish are usually killed or eaten by prey before they can spread germs or parasites to large numbers of other fish. Farmed fish, which live in high-density spaces, spread their diseases to each other.

These illnesses can be reintroduced to wild populations on a large scale, making their impact on the populations more prominent, according to the United Kingdom’s Natural History Museum. For instance, salmon farms are notorious for sea lice outbreaks.

More than 16 percent of farmed salmon in Norway—more than 62 million fish—died in 2023, mostly due to sea lice related injuries and illnesses, SeafoodSource reported. Most of those fish were sold as fish meal.

More than 865 million fish died in mass mortality events at major salmon farms between 2012 and 2022, a study published in March by the scientific journal Nature found. Both the number of mass casualty events and the amount of fish killed in each one have increased over time.

A report from Fisheries and Oceans Canada, which is the federal institute responsible for managing Canadian fisheries, found connections between sea lice outbreaks in salmon farms and outbreaks among juvenile salmon populations in British Columbia.

There is no easy way to deal with sea lice. Many farmers turn to chemical interventions to kill the pests, according to the Natural History Museum. These chemicals often make the fish sick by reducing their appetites and stunting their growth. Not only that, but sea lice have also gained resistance to the chemicals used to fight them.

To fight off bacterial diseases, farmed fish are given antibiotics, which introduces health risks to the consumer, according to a Seafood Watch report on Chilean farmed salmon.

“When antibiotics are used appropriately, the final food product is considered safe to eat,” says a spokesperson from Seafood Watch. “The misuse of antibiotics in animal production, though, is a concern for both the environment and human health—specifically because of the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.”

The US Food and Drug Administration places regulations on antibiotics in imported seafood, but there are no global standards or regulations.

“This is a growing issue, but the exact effects of antibiotic use on the surrounding environment are still poorly understood,” Seafood Watch adds.

There are some easy ways to tell if a fish is farmed or wild caught. For example, all Atlantic salmon is farmed, and all fish with an Alaska seafood label on it is wild caught.

“It’s important for consumers to know what they are eating,” Smith says.

Although there was a large bump in seafood sales during the COVID-19 pandemic that continued into 2022, it didn’t last. By 2023 seafood sales in the United States dropped beneath pre-pandemic levels, according to ASMI’s April 2024 Economic Value Report. Even though the price of seafood has decreased, land-based proteins are still less expensive.

On this front, farmed fish might actually bring some positive change, according to Smith. If farmed fish can make the market grow again, it will lift the Alaska seafood market up with it.

“Seafood as a category, especially in the United States, lags behind terrestrial proteins such as pork, beef, and chicken in overall consumption. We need more consumers buying and eating seafood more often,” Smith says. “Farmed fish certainly impacts Alaska fisheries by reducing demand and increasing competition. However, getting more people comfortable eating seafood can help in the long term.”

ASMI’s consumer research found that, once people start eating fish, they come back for more. According to Smith, this will draw consumers to Alaska seafood.

Smith says, “ASMI believes the numerous positives of Alaska seafood—sustainable, always wild, healthy, harvested from pristine waters by hardworking Alaskans who respect the environment, and follow strict environmental and labor laws—will lead them to purchase Alaska seafood.”