Farmers net profits with captive catch: North Carolina's expanding aquaculture industry feeds consumers' growing appetite for fresh fish.

• Position: CASH CROP: AQUACULTURE

North Carolinians crave their fish, whether sous vide, marinated, broiled or deep-fat fried and served up with heaping helpings of hush puppies and coleslaw. And the state's $53 million aquaculture industry does its best to oblige, supplying almost half the fish and shellfish Tar Heels consume.

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Despite a depressed economy and natural disasters such as tornados and hurricanes, the Tar Heel aquaculture industry's revenue, including processed products such as fish meal and fish oil, was up 1% last year over 2010. That continues nearly a decade of steady growth, boosted by university and private research and development. "Being able to maintain or grow even a small percentage in this economy demonstrates a strong aquaculture industry overall," says Pete Anderson. an N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services aquaculture consultant.

Aquaculture's growth comes as consumers realize wild fisheries are declining and learn where their fish come from as a result of mandatory country-of-origin labeling, says Debra Sloan, a Department of Agriculture aquaculture business adviser. Saltwater aquaculture lags behind freshwater production in North Carolina, even though the state provides 232 leases to shellfish cultivators and 293 to crab shedders, who capture crabs, retain them in saltwater tanks until they molt and then harvest and market them.

Why the lag in saltwater production? "High coastal real-estate prices is one issue." says Marc Turano, North Carolina Sea Grant mariculture specialist. "It's hard to put agriculture side by side with tourism." Another problem, according to Sloan, is that saltwater aquaculture is "new, complex, capital-intensive and heavily regulated."

Freshwater aquaculture has been more successful in large part because of university-based research. Tom Losordo, an internationally known aquaculture researcher and professor of biological and agricultural engineering at N.C. State University, developed freshwater recirculation systems that resolve many of the challenges of quarantining possibly diseased fish and dealing with wastewater and pond effluents. The technology also reduces exposure to the elements by moving operations indoors. Advances in disease management have reduced outbreaks by more than 95%, especially for producers using quarantine tanks, says Mike Frinsko, N.C. Cooperative Extension aquaculture agent in Jones County.

The state's diverse aquaculture industry produces several kinds of...