One of the follow-on surveys to the Census of Agriculture is the Census of Aquaculture. Since the 2022 Census of Agriculture has been conducted, a new USDA, Census of Aquaculture has been conducted for the production year 2023. Fish farmers are counted in the Census of Agriculture, but the follow-on survey allows USDA to go into more detail.

Today’s chart is from Table 9 of the 2023 Census of Aquaculture that was published last month in December 2024.  The Census of Aquaculture reports 3,453 fish and domesticated aquatic plant and animal farmers in 2023.  While looking for US algae farms, Census of Aquaculture provided authentic numbers.

Table 20 of the 2023 Census of Aquaculture reports that there are 64 US algae farms producing $40 million in algae sales.  Right below the algae farms, it is reported that an additional 34 microalgae farms produce $39 million in microalgae sales.

To set the background for the topic of the emerging commercialization of cellular agriculture, USDA provided evidence that in 2023 there were algal farms producing nearly $80 million in sales of these products. These farms recognized by USDA as such are cultivating simple, sometimes single-cell, plants in tanks. It is unclear if the same production units were located in an industrial manufacturing facility if it would still be considered a farm.

This is the motivation for exploring these existing facilities. What makes these tank-based plant production facilities a farm?

Table 9 of the 2023 Census of Aquaculture lists farm numbers by seven different types of markets: food fish, sport fish, bait fish, ornamentals, crustaceans, mollusks, and everything else. (Also in the ‘everything else’/miscellaneous category reported in Table 20, are 36 alligator farms in four states that generated $95 million in sales). This last category is where the algae farms are tabulated. Some of these farms produce for more than one kind of market. The distribution of the sales revenue of the $1.9 billion dollar industry roughly follows the distribution of farm numbers.

It is easy to take for granted the convenience of access to farm data like these US aquaculture farm production data. I am excited to have played a small role in launching the first Census of Aquaculture in 1998. I was simply one of the USDA data users that kept requesting better farmed aquaculture data. USDA asked me to document how that would benefit our work at the American Farm Bureau Federation. After which the first Census of Aquaculture appeared.

Some of the most meaningful work I contributed to at AFBF was for the aquaculture industry. At that time in the late 1990’s, farmed aquatic animals (fish) fell under the public waters definition of the wildlife laws. Fish farmers did not legally own their fish. I was part of a team that changed the enabling statutes that did not diminish the wildlife oversight, but did allow US fish farmers to own their fish. It took nearly a decade to accomplish, but it was good work.

Timing is everything.  Just before USDA invited data users to share how fish farm data would benefit them, the Census of Agriculture had also just moved from the Department of Commerce to the Department of Agriculture (1997).  Once USDA was in charge of the Census of Agriculture, they could leverage their data across more than the surveys they had always collected.  I also served on the Agricultural Statistics Advisory Committee for ten years, as discussed in an earlier post, Shaping Ag Data by Showing Up When Cool Things Happen.

There is good data in the USDA Census of Aquaculture.  Check it out.  Similarly to the 2022 Census of Agriculture, Table 39 discussed recently, the Census of Aquaculture provides evidence of farms that already cultivate simple and cellular plant as the shifts toward cellular agriculture are explored.