More than 400 organizations, community leaders, and businesses have signed a joint letter to Congress urging lawmakers to reject the Marine Aquaculture Research for America Act of 2025 (MARA Act).
The letter, which was delivered to lawmakers this week, was endorsed by fishing groups, farmers, food advocacy groups, conservation organizations, seafood businesses, chefs, Tribal groups, and faith-based organizations. It warns that MARA is not true “research” but a fast track to large-scale, commercial fish farms in federal ocean waters, with no off-ramps. These waters currently sustain fishing jobs, coastal communities and their working waterfronts, and marine ecosystems.
Signers point to well-documented risks from industrial-scale, open-ocean fish farming worldwide: carnivorous species, including salmon, are fed fishmeal and fish oil made from wild-caught forage fish, which has decimated wild fisheries. These operations also release untreated waste directly into surrounding waters; disease and parasites spread to wild fish; and farmed fish escapes disrupt local ecosystems and fisheries.
The groups also warn that MARA would hand control of ocean space to large agribusiness and multinational corporations — the types of companies backing MARA and profiting from supplying the aquaculture industry. It would repeat the worst parts of industrial agriculture, this time in the ocean.
The letter is urging Congress to pursue policies that bolster, rather than replace, existing domestic seafood economies, such as the Keep Finfish Free Act of 2025 (KFFA) and the Domestic Seafood Production Act (DSPA). These bills support working waterfronts by scaling up processing and distribution infrastructure, prevent corporate consolidation, and keep public waters in public hands.