US state approves $5m fund for aquaculture incentives
A $5 million budget has been approved by senators in Massachusetts to fund an aquaculture incentive programme within the state’s Department of Agriculture Resources.
The incentive programme is the result of an amendment put forward by Plymouth/Barnstable state senator Susan Moran during the passage of a bill authorising $375m in funding for economic development initiatives.
“Aquaculture provides economic opportunity throughout the Plymouth and Barnstable district and across Massachusetts,” said Moran.
Innovative permitting
The amendment authorises the creation of an aquaculture innovation programme to provide grants to municipalities to encourage increased opportunities for ocean farmers, including innovative permitting, re-zoning, resource surveys, mapping, demonstration farms, and stakeholder engagement, the Cape Cod NewsCenter website reported.
Massachusetts is on the eastern seaboard of the United States, south of Maine and New Hampshire. It has 1,519 miles of coastline according to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) method of calculation that includes tidal inlets. Another method of calculation which excludes tidal inlets records the state as having 192 miles of ocean coastline.
