Dr. Kelly Lucas, director of The University of Southern Mississippi’s Thad Cochran Marine Aquaculture Center in Ocean Springs, spoke in Washington recently on the importance of aquaculture in the United States. “The United States imports over 90 percent of our seafood and half the imports are aquaculture products,” Lucas told the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. “We have a $14 billion-dollar seafood trade deficit. With a growing demand for seafood and static wild capture fisheries since the 1990s, aquaculture must continue to grow to meet increasing demand.” The Thad Cochran Marine Aquaculture center includes about 100,000 square feet of culture space devoted to environmentally responsible and economically feasible marine aquaculture. Lucas’ team’s research focuses on alleviating the bottlenecks that constrain the production of marine species. Before arriving at USM’s School of Ocean Science and Technology, Lucas was the chief scientific officer for the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources. (Source: Southern Miss Now, 02/05/18)
