Aquarian transitions: Technological change, environmental uncertainty, and salmon production on North America's Pacific Coast

This study analyzes an aquarian transition in which global salmon production is evolving from an industry based solely on capture fisheries to a production continuum in which aquaculture has surpassed fishing as the dominant supplier. Examining historical and contemporary developments, this research shows that although the sectors' production methods and structures differ, salmon farming and fishing remain inexorably related on North America's Pacific Coast. They articulate with each other not only in salmon markets but also through mutually shaping interactions of nature (including genetic diversity), technology, social forces, politics, and government regulation.;Based on information gathered from industry and government sources as well as over 90 semi-structured personal interviews with fishermen, salmon farmers, natural scientists, policymakers and social activists in Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, and Maine, this study shows that state regulatory policy has been one of the main factors explaining why independent fishers have managed to remain the primary producers of salmon in Alaska's wild fisheries. Nonetheless, falling prices and other market changes are forcing this sector to reconfigure. The future is likely to see efforts to increase secondary processing of wild salmon catches, a redefinition of the commodity to include "wildness" as an element of market value, and a decline in the number of fishermen.;In aquaculture, small producers have virtually disappeared while scale efficiencies and appropriation of production processes have enabled capital to overcome natural and social obstacles, results that are inconsistent with predictions from the agrarian transitions literature. Acquisition of new production sites has been difficult, however, primarily because social agency has mobilized around the public-use property status of coastal waters and tidelands.;Finally, this study shows that organized and unorganized social resistance, interacting with economics and politics, has powerfully shaped the technology choices made by the aquaculture sector, suggesting that the literatures on "agro-industrial" change and capitalist imperatives for technological innovation have underestimated the importance of social forces. Consequently, public perceptions of food safety, environmental risks, and other issues will substantially influence the adoption, success, or failure of the next technological revolution on the horizon---transgenic salmon---and may contribute to changes in government regulation.