Potential Economic Impact of Commercial Offshore Aquaculture in the Gulf of Mexico

Résumé du livre

"The Gulf of Mexico commercial offshore aquaculture industry would include the production, processing and distribution of aquaculture species. The use of cages to grow food fish in the Gulf waters had been a subject to recent research efforts and commercial ventures. Three-inch red drum fingerlings were raised to market-size fish in less than 12 months in a research project off Freefort, Texas. The Gulf of Mexico Offshore Aquaculture Consortium attempted to grow cobia from in an experimental cage 40 km off Pascagoula, Mississippi. The overall goal of this paper was to estimate the potential economic impact of the establishment of economically viable commercial offshore aquaculture production systems in the Gulf. The potential impact of the industry was estimated by using IMPLAN and the 2000 Gulf states data which facilitated the use of the most appropriate multipliers. Commercial offshore aquaculture production was represented by the "Miscellaneous livestock " sector. Commercial seafood processing was represented by the "Prepared Fresh or Frozen Fish or Seafood" sectors. The ex-vessel values of the Gulf commercial fishing and processing sectors were retrieved from the National Marine Fisheries Service database. The direct effects created by the establishment and operation of a single production system with 12 cages would generate indirect and induced effects. Indirect effects consist of the inter-industry effects of the input-output analysis. Induced effects consist of the impact of household expenditures in input- output analysis. The sum of the direct, indirect, and induced effects is equal to the total economic impact measured in terms of output ($), jobs, labor income ($), and tax collections ($)"--National Sea Grant Digital Library publication website.