Catalina Sea Ranch, LLC raised $1,825,000 from Southern California community leaders with a passion and vision for aquaculture.
This investment increases the total capital raised by the company to $2,855,000, which will fund the initial phase of its aquaculture facility and initiate its innovative monitoring program. Purchase Orders for buoys, floats, ropes, anchors, and mussel seed have been placed and the first harvest of sustainable mussel crops are scheduled at the end of 2016.
Aquaculture has been the fastest growing segment of world food production, expanding at an average rate of 9 percent per year since 1950. According to a World Bank Report dated February 5, 2014: “Aquaculture will provide close to two thirds of global food fish production by 2030 as catches from wild capture fisheries level off and demand from an emerging global middle class, especially China, substantially increases.”
Offshore aquaculture has the potential to provide a local source of nutritious seafood and help reduce our nation’s $11 billion seafood deficit. Catalina Sea Ranch’s pioneering project will also serve as a pilot for evaluating the potential of a sustainable shellfish industry for Southern California. A rigorous and transparent monitoring program, employing advanced communication technologies, will provide the scientific data for domestic expansion and for the advancement of global offshore aquaculture.
Philip Cruver, President and CEO of Catalina Sea Ranch remarked: “This investment will allow us to build out phase one of our ranch and deploy the offshore technologies for demonstrating no negative impact. Regulators, and other stakeholders will be able to monitor our shellfish ranch in real-time using the Internet. This will provide data for collaborative scientific analyses to develop best practices and responsible regulatory criteria for the future of marine spatial planning in U.S. Federal waters.”
ECO interviewed Philip Cruver in our July 2015 issue. For more information, click here.
