Sea cucumbers, along with schools of mullet and tilapia, are among the University of Hawaii Manoa’s newest residents.

The guest list is likely to grow at the new Tuahine Aquacutlure Research and Education Center, designed to enhance research dedicated to rearing marine life for aquaculture production across the state. It’s a practice with deep roots in Hawaii.

The center will provide a platform for education and research, as well as a place where Hawaii’s’ marine farmers can troubleshoot. TAREC is expected to fuel the growth of Hawaii’s aquaculture industry, which has yet to reach its full potential as a driver of the state’s agricultural economy.

The effort is already underway. UH researcher and professor Andre Seale, who spearheaded TAREC’s establishment, is working on a project to ensure striped mullet can survive to adulthood in the state’s many Native Hawaiian fishponds, known as loko ia. 

Striped mullet have long been an important species for the ponds – the catch was about 700,000 pounds in 1900 – but they have struggled to survive in recent years because of the changing climate.

“The fishponds vary a lot, salinity changes can be a big reality in Hawaii,” Seale said. “Part of it is … understanding what the conditions are.”

The 8,600 square-foot facility contains about 80 water tanks with capacities of five to 1,300 gallons each, connected in a closed-loop, self-cleaning system that allows for cocktails of saltwater and freshwater to be mixed according to the researchers’ and species’ needs.

TAREC will add to a list of well-established aquaculture research facilities statewide, including several facilities at UH Hilo. But the Manoa center will give students more consistent hands-on experience at a scale they never had before, Seale said.

Replicating various fishponds’ conditions at scale will give Seale and his research team the ability to figure out how to give hatchlings the best chance of survival. The hope is that a steady flow of more-resilient mullet will enhance the Native Hawaiian cultural practice.

The traditional method of farming, where the fish are caught and raised in estuaries, has seen a renaissance for more than a decade. But fishpond conditions are not exactly the same as they were during their heyday, which means they need help to reach their full potential, said UH Sea Grant Associate Director Darren Okimoto.

UH Sea Grant partnered with the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources to build the facility. Sea Grant is also funding some of Seale’s research.

“We need to help these communities to be more self-sufficient, produce their own food and support the research,” Okimoto said.

Seale’s research also looks at how tilapia, chub, yellowtail and sea cucumbers react to stress in their environment, with the intent of finding the best species for farming.

He compares the work to breeding livestock to get the most out of certain types of cattle – for milk, rapid growth, fattiness or drafting, among other things. That has happened for thousands of years.

“But the vast majority of aquatic species have been newly domesticated over the last few decades so there’s a lot more room to learn,” Seale said. 

That means looking at a broader list of species for cultivation in fishponds and elsewhere, Okimoto said.

Aquaculture in Hawaii is worth about $90 million a year, a figure experts say has the potential to grow to $600 million within 10 years. That would make it almost as valuable as the state’s entire agricultural sector, currently worth about $670 million a year.

Algae alone is Hawaii’s fourth-most valuable agricultural commodity behind seed crops, cattle and coffee, worth $45.4 million in 2022.

But for Hawaii to get there, industry leaders say some key issues need to be addressed. The state and counties need to refine their regulations, infrastructure needs to be built and people need to be trained to create a stronger local workforce.

Hawaii Grown

This ongoing series delves deep into what it would take for Hawaii to decrease its dependence on imported food and be better positioned to grow its own.

Read More

Beyond food, aquaculture has myriad commercial applications for the health and wellness sector, environmental remediation, climate change mitigation and conservation.

Sea Grant’s mandate covers those areas, which is why it it supported Seale’s drive to build TAREC, Okimoto said. The facility will help make careers in the industry more alluring, he added. 

“The industry in Hawaii has said that we’re not (attracting) locals,” Okimoto said. “They’re bringing in folks from the outside.”

The state Department of Agriculture this year released its plan to develop aquaculture in Hawaii. Like the Legislature, the department has not paid much attention to the industry in the past.

Sen. Glenn Wakai introduced a handful of bills to support the industry this year, but met with little success. 

Wakai, one of few vocal lawmakers supporting the industry, said people can expect “more of the same.”

The Agriculture Department acknowledges the obstacles that fish farming faces, some due to burdensome regulations, which Wakai said he wanted to address in the coming legislative session.

“Hawaii Grown” is funded in part by grants from the Stupski Foundation, Ulupono Fund at the Hawaii Community Foundation and the Frost Family Foundation.