Wild Fisheries & Aquaculture Innovation with Nicholas Sullivan

Meet Nicholas Sullivan, author of Blue Revolution, who helps debunk some of the myths around wild caught seafood versus aquaculture and tells us about new blue technologies that will make both industries fare better. 

Nicholas is a Senior Fellow at The Fletcher School’s Council on Emerging Market Enterprises and a Senior Research Fellow at its Maritime Studies Program. A writer and editor focused on the interplay between technology and development, Sullivan has twice been a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Resident Fellow. He is a graduate of Harvard University and The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and resides in Dartmouth, Massachusetts.

To learn more about fisheries and blue technology in New England, I highly recommend reading his book. It is a who’s who of New England’s blue economy, and a few of the players figuring in it will be featured in upcoming Happy Planet podcasts.

A few mentions: 

www.blue-trace.com
https://www.newenglandoceancluster.com
Iceland Ocean Cluster @oceancluster

Transcript

HOOK: In this podcast we will break down myths about both wild catch and aquaculture and learn now innovation is shaping the seafood industry.

HOST VO: Welcome to Happy Planet an impact economy podcast where we speak with entrepreneurs, investors and thought leaders in search of profit and planetary health. I

Our first season will treat the ocean economy, a world I am intimately familiar with, and where some of the greatest environmental impacts are being forged from business innovation.

Today I’ll introduce you to Nicholas Sullivan. I discovered Niko through his book Blue Revolution: Hunting, Harvesting and Fishing. In it, he breaks down commonly held myths about both wild catch and aquaculture. I was interested in talking to him about how business innovation and good policy are ushering in a new “post-industrial” era of increasingly sustainable, and traceable, quality seafood. What really stuck with me from this conversation was how optimistic he remains about the future of fish. 

ABIGAIL welcome to the podcast, Nico.

Nick (00:07:27):

Thank you. It's a treat to be here on this new podcast.

Abigail (00:07:32):

first I just love to know more about you and how you got interested in the blue economy.

Nick (00:07:43):

Well, I, um, have am a writer and I have long focused on, you know, the impact of technology and entrepreneurship on, you know, business and social innovation. as I've progressed through my career, I've gotten more and more interested in international work going from the us to the international.

Nick (00:08:46):

And in the course of the international work, of course, you know, food security kept coming up over and over again. And fish, uh, was a huge, is a huge part of, you know, food security, especially in the developing world where, you know, a majority of people get the majority of their protein from fish. I of course had heard all the dire stories that many have heard about, you know, the depletion of fish stocks. And so I just started to wonder where the fish gonna come from to feed the world. And, um, I'll say one more thing about my interest in the fishing is that I had written, um, about fishing some decades ago when the Magnuson–Stevens Act was being, um, first put into law in 1976 to establish the 200 mile limit to push the Russian and other European factory ships off our shores and to establish all the kind of principles that the US has been, you know, managing its fisheries by ever since. So I kind of came back. 

Abigail (00:09:59):

that's, that's interesting. And I wanna definitely get back to the Magnuson–Stevensv Act a little bit later in the podcast. you have this emerging markets background fisheries are sort of a hot topic now. You're interested in technology and, um, and, and food, you know, we're all talking today about, you know, by 2050, you know, we're gonna have to double the world's food production to feed the world's population. certainly in the,in the fisheries world, we, we believe that fish are gonna be a big part of that. you get into that here in your new book, the blue revolution, and what, what do you mean by the blue revolution?

Nick (00:10:49):

Well, I'll tell you, so the blue revolution has a very specific meaning, but I have expanded it. Um, so initially the blue revolution referred to, there was a green revolution in the fifties, sixties, seventies to expand rice and wheat yield in Mexico,and Asia, uh, very successful in many ways. and then in the 1980s, there was an explosion of aquaculture freshwater aquaculture in India, and other parts of Asia that became referred to as the blue revolution. So both were focused on food production, you know, rice and wheat, and, you know, supposedly the green revolution, um, kept a billion people from starvation and then the blue revolution, of course, same thing, how to feed, feed the world. Uh, but it was fresh water aquaculture, but so my blue revolution is kind of an extension of that saying it's Marine aquaculture as well. It's Western, it's the entire world. It's not just India or Asia and it's not just food production, but it's, you know, ocean habitat, restoration, preservation, and so forth. 

Abigail (00:12:08):

So correct me if I'm wrong. But the green revolution was basically prompted by Americans bringing farming technology and know-how to Asia and Mexico. But the blue revolution, interestingly, the, the aquaculture happening in India and Asia were not, uh, based on US technology, they they've been ahead of us. Is that correct?

Nick (00:12:35):

Right. No, that's exactly right. Yep. And, um, you know, aquaculture has been going on for thousands of years. Um, but it's only really since the eighties and nineties that it has been kind of, you know, it's been negligible on the, on the global scale, but in the eighties and nineties, nineties being when kind of, you know, wild capture Fisher fisheries hit a kind of flat line and they've been flat ever since. And then, you know, aquaculture has just been, the graph has been going up to the right. Um, so yes, everything you say is true. It, you know, it's primarily freshwater, aquaculture is still in the world. Yep. The Marine is new and it was definitely an Asian, uh, phenomenon for centuries.

Abigail (00:13:20):

Yep.

Nick (00:13:21):

And some, some south America as well as

Abigail (00:13:24):

For sure. Yes. Right. And Chile and such. Yeah. Um, so, okay. We've got this blue revolution and why is it so important right now? Why is this book important?

Nick (00:13:39):

I start again with the food because,  the world population has been growing 1.6% per year for the last 60 years. Fish consumption per capita has been growing 3% per year over that time. So fish consumption has been doubling world population growth. So,it's important because the world is going to continue to grow and we need more food. There's a demand for seafood. It's a, it's a lean protein, um, uh, seafood production is much more ecologically, uh, sound than say beef or pig production on land, which takes up a lot of, of land, a lot of water, a lot of grain. Um, so it's a much more efficient food to produce. Um, so, uh, that's important, um, in terms of the ocean itself, you know, 70% of the planet is ocean and many people always say that planet earth should really be called planet ocean. So the, you know, you know, protection of and restoration of the ocean is really, really important. And I think that's a big part of this. So 50 to 80% of the oxygen we breathe comes from algae microalgae or phytoplankton in the ocean. And, um, phytoplankton with warming waters and climate change is, you know, is a bit under duress in terms of its production. So there are a lot of reasons to, to care and, um, uh, engage in with the blue revolution, you know, to continue it and to expand it and, um, to, um, develop businesses around it.

Abigail (00:15:26):

Right. Because we're really talking about feeding the planet in a, a sort of environmentally sustainable way and, and, you know, at once exploiting the resources of the ocean and the opportunities of the ocean, but also restoring it while we do that.

Nick (00:15:45):

Correct. Yeah. And the thing is that  the drivers, one of the drivers, of course, the blue revolution is, you know, what it started with, which is aquaculture and, um, in which, by the way now is 52% of the seafood eat in the world is farmed. At least that was the last, you know, world, the United nations number I saw. Uh, and it's so different than wild capture fishing, which is basically hunting, right. So it's a different thing. It's more science oriented, it's a more entrepreneurial. And, um, so it's, it's a, it's a different, it's a different game really than wild capture fishing. Um, so that's one of the drivers and the technology, um, which has, you know, been accelerating in the last 30, 40 years, uh, is a key part of it too, making it more and more possible. Yeah. In terms of AI and sensors and data collection and machine learning, and it's made fish farming much more efficient and profitable.

Abigail (00:16:51):

Right. can you talk to me a little bit, I feel like there's a lot of sort of misconceptions in the whole world of fish today. Um, we've got, wild fisheries and there's a sense that, you know, at the, on the one hand there we're depleting our fisheries. On the other hand, we've got, you know, fishermen who are suffering because there's so many rules, it's very hard to keep up. And, you know, on the aquaculture side, I feel like there's a lot of mystery about, you know, is this, you know, is this a sustainable practice? Is this not a sustainable practice? Can we, can we break some of that down 

Nick (00:17:50):

You know, as I started getting into this and talking to people, I realized that most people, um, wherever they live or however, close to the coast or not, they are, do have a lot of negative perceptions of fishing, wild capture and fish farming. And I was seeing a different story, a different picture. And I think that a lot of the negative perceptions date back to the nineties, which is when the overfishing really peaked when the Cod really kind of dropped off the edge of a cliff and in terms of stock, um, size and, um, when the messy Norwegian salmon farms were, you know, nearshore, with seelies and escapement and all these things that, um, led people to say, you know, and there were t-shirts and posters. I, a lot coming out of Alaska, I think saying friends, don't let friends eat farmed fish <laugh>. Um, but, um, yeah, Robert Jones, the head of aquaculture at the nature Conservancy used to be one of those people, but now he is head of aquaculture at the nature Conservancy. So that's a, that's a big, simple example of how people people's perceptions have changed and should change. I think.

Abigail (00:19:12):

So why should we be looking at aquaculture differently today? What are, what are some of the things that are happening that are making it more palatable and more sustainable and of just a better choice for, for people?

Nick (00:19:28):

Right. Well, one thing that I've learned, actually I learned this from the nature Conservancy is that, um, the majority of Marine aquaculture or mariculture is shellfish and kelp. Yeah. And of course the negative perceptions that most people have are based on fin fish farming. Yeah. In nearshore waters. Yeah. Um, so, um, shellfish and kelp are both naturally restorative to the water as they don't use food. They're very, you know, it's very efficient to grow as, you know, as an

Abigail (00:20:03):

Yes.

Nick (00:20:04):

<laugh> oyster farmer.

Abigail (00:20:05):

We had no bad perceptions. It was great.

Nick (00:20:08):

No, and, you know, they're high protein and all that stuff. I mean, it is hard to imagine feeding the world on oysters and muscles and kelp. Yeah. Right. But, um, that's a different issue. <laugh> um, so, and the other thing is that the whole, you know, aquaculture, um, processes have switched. I mean, people are going further and further offshore into deeper waters with stronger currents. So keeping the water clean, or they're going to land based recirculating tanks, which solves a lot of the environ ocean environmental problems. I know that they're, you know, controversial in some places, um, because of just of the lingering perceptions. But I think it's a much cleaner, uh, business it's recirculating water and cleaning it and not re and there's very little waste. Um, the only issue with the, those big tanks, um, is that they're expensive to run, um, a lot of electricity, a lot of water and, um, a lot of possibility for error. I mean, if the system's going up, you can lose a lot of fish fast,

Abigail (00:21:18):

For sure. For Sure

Nick (00:21:19):

And, you know, the, the other misperception that I didn't get to on the wild side is that, you know, people really think that fish just disappearing, that they're all going extinct, or a lot of them are. And the fact of the matter is that there have been almost very few Marine extinctions in the last 500 years. And, um, it is true that one third, you know, the UN says, one third of fish stocks are over fished, but that doesn't mean they're extinct. It means if we continue overfishing them, they could become extinct. Um, but, and the other thing about that overfishing is that one third of the fish that are caught or caught illegally. And I think that's a huge, um, part of the overfishing that we are talking about, you know, is these pirate ships, it's, um, nations like Korea, China, Thailand, Japan, Spain, that are fishing in other people's waters without regard for, you know, sustainable limits or, you know, controls at all.

Nick (00:22:25):

Yeah. But it's a fairly concrete, um, discrete number of actors that are doing that. And there's a lot of emphasis on, uh, identifying and targeting them. So it's not like all fishermen are bad. It's like, there's just some countries that are in, um, outta control and, you know, some kind of pirate operations. So, um, I think those that is a big perception issue. And I think that, you know, then people should say, well, actually, especially in the US, which is a very well managed fishery. Right. And, um, is considered a model for the world that, um, there is a way to do it right. And a lot of countries I'd say half or more of the world's population actually is fishing, you know, within sustainable limits in managing their fisheries very well.

Abigail (00:23:20):

It's always the few bad actors that ruin it for everybody. Right.

Nick (00:23:24):

I think it, I really think, I mean, I really became to, to see that is the issue of the few bad actors who are causing a lot of problems.

Abigail (00:23:34):

Yep. Um, it just getting sort of a little deeper into the wild fisheries. What were some of the, um, biggest surprises to you as you were digging into the wild fisheries?

Nick (00:23:48):

well, two things, one is I was focused. I started out looking at the globe, but global issue, but I was really focused on new England, Northeast, where I grew up. And, um, uh, if you look at the value of landings, lobster is number one on the east coast. Wow. Um, scallops is number two and aquaculture is number three and ground fish, which are the iconic Cod and haddock and everything, um, are less than 10% of landings or value of landings. Right. Right. So that's one thing. The other is that there are more ground fish in new England in the Northeast now than there were 20 or 30 years ago because of new management techniques. So that was a surprise to me.

Abigail (00:24:41):

Right.

Nick (00:24:42):

Um, so what else, the other thing is, you know, are with climate change, they're moving around, you know, as, as you probably have heard, and lobsters are moving north, black sea bass moving from the Mid-Atlantic and squid, moving from the Mid-Atlantic up to the north, you know, Gulf of Maine. And so there's a lot of, um, there's a lot of that going on. And the other thing is that I, I say in this book several times that the last 20 years have been better for the fish than the fishermen. Yeah. Because I think some of the policies that have been enacted to manage the fisheries, which they have done a good job at doing have been bad for the fishermen, cuz the, you know, there's been a lot of consolidation of fleets. Lot of boats have been lost. Lot of captains have gone outta business and it's very hard for young people to get into the business because it's expensive and you need to buy the quota. Which

Abigail (00:25:41):

So right. I think in, in new Bedford, I think a quota for a scallop boat is like $3 million or something like that. Very, um, or, or the license for a scallop boat for a season.

Nick (00:25:53):

Yeah. I don't know. but I can believe it. Yeah, yeah,

Abigail (00:25:58):

Yeah, yeah. Um, so, you know, aquaculture, I guess, is meant to solve some of these problems, right. It's meant to addres.s.

Nick (00:26:10):

one problem is it would take pressure off, um, the need to catch wild fish, right?

Abigail (00:26:19):

Yeah.

Nick (00:26:20):

Um, or it would allow us and other countries to continue fishing at a sustainable level without going crazy.. The US is very far behind in all this, as you mentioned earlier, you know, agriculture started in, Asia's been there for thousands of years. The US is 18th in the world now in aquaculture. And um, even though we have second most ocean territory in the world after France. Yeah. So, and we have a huge seafood trade deficit, $17 billion. So if we keep going on this, if aquaculture and it is, is the fastest form of food production in the world. And Marine aquaculture is the fastest growing form of aquaculture and we're 18th in the world. Um, our trade deficit is gonna keep increasing unless we make some radical shift. And that then becomes kind of a, you know, issue of national security really. I mean, food security sure is a big issue. Uh, and of course for the commerce department, the trade deficit is a huge issue. Right. So, um, yeah, we could afford to ramp up our aquaculture.

Abigail (00:27:45):

Right. I mean, it's becoming a, it's a, it's a climate issue too, because, you know, we're, if we're, I mean, I think the statistic is somewhere between 70 and 85 or 90% of our seafood is imported. And, um, and so all of, you know, the carbon footprint on our seafood is, is something of a, of a global catastrophe.

Nick (00:28:08):

Oh, I know all the salmon being flown in. Right. Well, um, as you know, in Maine, there are three new salmon farms that have been permanent, I believe, right. In Belfast, passport Millinocket, and, um, yep. Um, and they're all land based and they're near to markets. There's a huge salmon farm in south Miami. There's one in Indiana. There's one in Wisconsin. There's one in going Nevada, California. I think. So there's a big push to move, you know, and the US is the number one importer of salmon. So there is a big carbon footprint issue there. 

Nick (00:28:48):

consumers are a big part of this. I, I, I became to, I came to realize as I was working on this, that the consumers have a huge opportunity to, um, demand different foods, different quality of fish, uh, different farming techniques and different types of fish. Yeah. Because salmon is a carniverous fish takes three years to grow out. And so that's a big economic investment. And there are other fish that are faster and easier to grow and that are, you know, equally high protein and tasty and, you know, branzino and Barrow Mundi to come to my, among others. 

Abigail (00:29:47):

It's funny. Cuz like in, even in land farming, you know, if you read menus from like 200 years ago, they were eating like muskrat and like possum and all these, all these different things and you know, and then we decide to farm. So they pick some key sort of animals to farm and then you've got the, you know, you know, seafood, you would think because so much of seafood has historically been wild catch that we would, we would have continued to eat more variety of fish. And yet we've been very reductive in, in what we eat.

Nick (00:30:25):

Right. Well, you know, you know, you talked about the import, so the majority of the seafood Americans eat is farmed salmon and farm shrimp from the other side of the world. Either Asia, Norway or Chile. Yeah. And um, and also canned tuna from the other side of the world. Yeah. That's like 65% of the seafood that Americans eat. that has got to switch.

this black sea bass is, uh, be becoming very popular Dogfish unfortunately are not very popular, but they're very abundant.

Nick (00:31:22):

But yeah, no people have to switch to move to what, um, uh, the Gulf of Maine research Institute, you know, uh, identified as underutilized or unloved species and start eating what the, what the ocean provides rather than, you know, to make it more supply based rather than demand based. 

BREAK

Abigail (00:31:50):

So we wanna start using more underutilized fish, but you also talk about, um, what the, the example, the Icelandic people are, um, are providing with a hundred percent utilization. So can you talk to us a little bit about the ocean cluster in Iceland and what they're doing?

Nick (00:32:14):

the, the Iceland ocean cluster is definitely a world model started about 2010 or 11. I believe Thor Sjavarklasinn in, yeah. It's a, basically a big incubator on the docks in Reykjavík and they're not fishing businesses, but they're Marine related businesses trying to make use of all parts of the fish and a hundred percent utilization is one of the goals of the cluster, right? Yeah. Because usually most cases 40 to 50% of fish are just thrown overboard or turned into pet food, which is not a high value thing. So, um, they've got all these businesses going there that are producing, you know, pharmaceuticals and health aids and, uh, bandages, you know. The famous one that to me is that carosis bandage for diabetic wounds that is, um, using Cod skin. So you can get eight bandages from one Cod that are worth 500 each or $4,000 for the skin of one Cod.

Nick (00:33:20):

Um, but the other interesting thing about the ocean cluster in Iceland is that Thor, the founder of it has been, um, become, uh, an evangelist to use an old, uh, Silicon valley term for the idea of, you know, on the dock blue economy, incubators. And there's, you know, there's one in Portland, Maine. Yeah. Now there's one in new Bedford, mass. There's one in new Haven, Connecticut, Seattle, Washington, Sitka, Alaska, or Anchorage, Alaska. I think there's one in Norway. So there's a, there's a global movement and they're all different. They're all kind of, you know, locally, um, driven depending on, you know, the type of entrepreneurs or the type of product, but it's a very positive, and there's a lot of interaction between all these clusters, you know, ideas sharing, which is why Thor started the ocean cluster initially was he said, um, he has a PhD in networking.

Nick (00:34:18):

And he said, you know, and fishing is a, you know, one of the top industries in Iceland. He said, I always, you know, it was unbelievable to me that the fishermen didn't talk to each other fishing businesses, didn't talk to other fishing businesses. They're also, I isolated and secretive. And so he's tried to like bust that apart. 

Abigail (00:34:58):

Uh, certainly the, from a casual observation of the Portland ocean cluster, I've been impressed at this sort of collaborative and multidisciplinary approach of what's going on there. I mean, I have a friend who's a law professor who has a spot there. I have a friend who's innovated. Um, actually who's gonna be on our podcast. Who's innovated a sort of alternative to bottom paint, you know, there there's the skincare people in there. It's, it's a really interesting mix of people that, um, that, that are very collaborative and not, not competitive. And that's a, that's really exciting.

Nick (00:35:37):

Yeah. And then there are other groups like, you know, sea ahead, which I know, you know, out of Boston and Providence and now Mississippi, which is a different, is not an ocean cluster on the docks, but it is, it's an international cluster of businesses in the blue economy that are working all over the place that have this core and are getting introduced to each other and to investors and so forth be because, you know, investment in fishing itself has been very, I mean, people never invested in fishing. I mean the only people would be fishermen who hit it big and would reinvest in their own business, but outside investors. Uh, but so that's another positive development.

Abigail (00:36:24):

Well, I, I think that speaks to our, our audience here and where we're trying to go with the, this podcast is really to kind of look at the blue economy and look at some of these, these issues like seafood. 

Nick (00:37:28):

the other thing related to all that is, um, not just utilizing a hundred percent of the fish, which is a, a goal, I don't think anyone's really done a hundred percent or maybe they have in some cases, but, um, of getting more value for the fish. Um, like true fin in Maine has been doing that with the, uh, uh, catchamay technique of quick kill and so forth. And some of the Hudson valley farms in, uh, New York state, which is growing, um, farming steelhead is using a version of that, uh, open blue COIA and Panama is also doing that kind of quick stunt kill thing. Yeah. And it just is, um, it preserves the freshness and value of the fish. So you can charge more for it. And also with flash freezing techniques today, right. You can get fish and start the processing onboard, ideally, which is happening in Iceland and do the flash freeze. And you've just got a really fresh fish be because, you know, in the past, people used to equate quality with freshness and frozen was seen as kind of a third rate commodity kind of supermarket food, but that game has changed a lot. 

Abigail (00:39:01):

Well, I mean, this idea of fresh is also, you know, a bit fuzzy because so much of fish even, you know, it's just frozen on the boat before it gets to shore. So, I mean, just thrown on ice. So I'm not even talking about flash frozen. Right. So, right. It's, it's a fuzzy issue to begin with. So, um, uh, it does make a lot of sense to embrace, technologically advanced freezing techniques and, um, and preserve, preserve the fish as close to its, um, source as possible.

Nick (00:39:41):

Yeah. And of course, some of the fish that is frozen, you know, you talk about the, the imports and exports that, I mean, we, we basically export what we catch and import what we eat, but a lot of the fish we export is frozen shipped overseas for processing refrozen and shipped back. So it's twice, twice frozen. Right. Which, uh, you're talking about the carbon footprint, but also it's kind of a sorry piece of fish after it's been, you know, frozen thaw, frozen thaws so there's a lot to fix put it that way.

Abigail (00:40:13):

So, so who are some of the players that are, or we'd have to name them by name, but what are some of the, some of the things that, the technologies that you've learned about through writing this book that, that, that make you excited and that you think are part of the, the solution?

Nick (00:40:34):

this whole movement toward, um, QR codes, um, for two purposes is really exciting. I mean, um, Red's best in Boston is one of the first that I know of that did it, um, using QR codes for storytelling, you know, just the name of the boat, the name of the captain, the gear, the locale and everything. And that's another kind of connection between producer and consumer. then the, you know, taking that another level is like legit fish in Boston, which is now developing blockchain traceability for a new Bedford and Gloucester auctions, auction houses.

Nick (00:42:02):

When you think about the the pirated illegal fish that is caught and then imported to the US, um, using that traceability or the new DNA testing, you know, quick probe DNA test to identify the type of fish and where it comes from. All those things, I think increase the value of the fish 

Abigail (00:42:58):

Yeah.

And the FDA's gonna demand that soon. I mean, there's new rules coming up this fall that are gonna ask for traceability basically from tide to table.

Nick (00:45:11):

let's hope that, you know, you know, mentioned the developing world initially where, you know, the importance of fish to the diet there, the artisanal and indigenous fishermen in say the west coast of Africa are getting totally hammered by this illegal fishing yeah. By these foreign fleets coming into African waters and they cannot compete. Um, so that, you know, along with the illegal fishing, that protection of indigenous, um, artisanal fisheries and, you know, in the Western Pacific as well is a really important thing. And I think the Western Pacific, uh, the islands there, there, there's a lot of really good kind of, um, regional cooperative units that are protecting those fisheries.

Abigail (00:45:59):

Yeah. So despite all of this sort of confusion in your book, I got the sense that you were, you were pretty optimistic. 

Nick (00:46:17):

Well, yeah, I am optimistic. 

So there's a lot of positive stuff like that, going on, the science and technology, making farming more efficient and ecological. Uh, one, one thing I really like is the, this idea of in aquaculture of aquaponics, which is using water from that the fish have grown in to clean that water and then use it to grow vegetables.

Nick (00:49:14):

I think that's positive. And one other thing I really am excited about is the idea of these Marine protected areas. You know, there's a goal to get 30% of the ocean protected by 2030, which is not gonna happen. But, um, I think given all that's going on, but I think that it is, it is growing it's 7% now is protected. So say it gets to 20%, but I think that's really good for the, uh, the ability of fish to adapt to climate change. Yeah. Because if they don't have to worry about being hunted, they can worry about adapting <laugh> to the, you know, the, the changes in their ocean. 

Abigail:

What kind of advice would you give to entrepreneurs who are interested in the blue revolution,what are some of the things that you should, you know, what are some of the nuts that need to be cracked?

Nick (00:55:00):

Right. Um, well, you know, one thing that would be interesting is electric boats.

I think, you know, um, investment in, um, in, uh, these Marine related businesses that are not necessarily fish itself, but in the utilization of, in new product development mm. Uh, is really big. 

HOST VO:  In a world where we are looking to the ocean to help us feed a growing planet, Niko’s research and writing helps clarify the challenges and opportunities of fishing and aquaculture. And unlike the green revolution where the US was exporting technology abroad, in Niko’s blue revolution, we have a lot to learn from innovations in Iceland, Norway and China to name a few. Despite all of the challenges, I was happy to hear Niko’s optimism about the power of innovation to provide seafood that is healthy for us and for the planet.

CREDITS

Thank you for listening. Please follow the Happy Planet Podcast wherever you listen and leave us a rating and review - it really helps new listeners discover the show. 

Happy Planet Podcast was reported and hosted by me, Abigail Carroll. I am the Executive Producer. The talented Dylan Heuer [hoyer] is our producer and editor. Composer GEORG BRANDL EGOFF created our theme music.

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