Sponsors (2)
Introduced August 5, 2025 by Frank Pallone · Last progress August 5, 2025
The bill increases federal support, research, and insurance options to grow and stabilize U.S. aquaculture—benefiting producers, consumers, and supply-chain resilience—while creating new federal costs, potential reallocations away from traditional agriculture, and risks from broader regulatory reach and environmental impacts.
Aquaculture producers (small businesses and farmers) will gain substantial new federal funding, competitive grants, research dollars ($30M/year for regional centers + $10M/year for cleaner tech, FY2026–2030) and a federally backed insurance program, improving innovation, lowering long-term operating costs, and reducing financial risk from disease and weather losses.
Seafood and aquaculture producers will get clearer, more equitable access to USDA programs through improved eligibility guidance, outreach, staff training, and regular convenings, leading to better application processing and program integration into rural development.
Consumers, policymakers, and market participants will benefit from improved data and transparency—annual and multi-year reports on USDA spending, domestic processing capacity, and overseas processing impacts—to inform supply-chain, food-security, and investment decisions.
Taxpayers will fund new recurring federal spending (about $40M/year authorized for research/grants) plus added administrative/reporting costs, creating fiscal tradeoffs and pressure on the federal budget.
Prioritizing aquaculture funding and highlighting USDA support could shift limited USDA grant dollars away from traditional land-based farmers and other agricultural programs, disadvantaging some farmers and rural small businesses.
A broad or new definition of aquaculture could unintentionally bring additional activities and facilities under regulation or remove prior exemptions, imposing compliance costs or new obligations on some operators and rural communities.
Based on analysis of 8 sections of legislative text.
Directs USDA to expand support for aquaculture through reporting, parity in grants and assistance, staff training, new research and grant funding, and aquaculture crop insurance.
Requires USDA to expand support for the seafood and aquaculture sector by defining aquaculture, producing regular reports and an evaluation of USDA’s role, treating aquaculture producers comparably to land-based agriculture for grants and assistance, funding regional aquaculture centers and new competitive grants, and directing the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation to develop aquaculture insurance. It also mandates USDA staff education, a department-wide memorandum affirming aquaculture eligibility, and recurring stakeholder training events.