CRAIG T. KOJIMA / 2017
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said producers of farmed fish and other marine organisms took in $76.4 million in sales last year.
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Hawaii’s aquaculture industry needed fewer workers last year
but maintained sales close to a 2014 peak, according to a recent federal report.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said producers of farmed fish and other marine organisms took in $76.4 million in sales last year. That was up 1 percent from $75.7 million the year before and was a hair over the $76.2 million total in 2015. The record was $78.2 million in 2014.
“Aquaculture sales continued to hold steady after a record high in 2014,” said the report produced with help from the state Department of Agriculture and released Oct. 5.
The number of workers in the
industry, however, fluctuated significantly.
The report said aquaculture producers employed 462 workers last year, which was down from 500 the year before but up from 406 in 2015.
Worker levels, which reflect peak employment, have been included
in the report only since 2015.
With the exception of algae, sale values for different categories of farmed products haven’t been disclosed since 2011. The value of
algae sales largely used in nutritional supplements was $35.2 million last year, up from $34.3 million the year before. Sale values for shellfish, finfish such as moi and ornamental fish such as koi are no longer disclosed because doing so could enable competitors to discern revenue of specific companies.