Aquaculture & Plant-based Labeling

Miranda Herreid, JD candidate’25

In the Spring semester, Miranda drafted two public comments. The first comment was in response to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) call for comments about the development of Aquaculture Opportunity Areas (AOAs) in federal waters off of Southern California. Opening up federal waters to intensive aquaculture could potentially have devastating consequences for public health, marine ecosystems and animal welfare. Miranda’s comment aims to bring these concerns before the agency and can be found here.

The second comment was submitted in response to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) call for comments on its Draft Guidelines for labeling of plant-based alternatives (PBAs). The draft guidelines aim to unnecessarily complicate labeling for plant-based alternatives, while failing to impose similar requirements for animal based products.

Here is what Miranda has to say about her strategy drafting these two comments:

“For the NOAA comment, I read the lengthy Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for the Identification of AOAs. After some follow-up research, I argued against the development of open sea aquaculture based on the adverse economic, social, environmental, and public health effects that would be likely to result. I mainly focused on how the development of commercial aquaculture in U.S. federal waters would not increase American food security or competitiveness. I spent the most time on the economic argument because the primary drive behind the development of the AOAs is the desire for economic gain. Additionally, the welfare implications for net pen aquaculture are horrific, as these aquatic factory farms crowd together stressed fish in an unnatural environment, leading to sea lice and other adverse outcomes, and there is not any attention paid to the wellbeing of the fish.

As for my comment to the FDA, I started with the legal argument that the Draft Guidelines do not conform with the constitutional requirements for regulating commercial speech. I then moved to the practical arguments from the perspective of a consumer of PBAs. My final argument contrasted the recent attention to disclosure requirements on PBAs to the lack of attention given to disclosure requirements for products with animal-based ingredients. As animal advocates, we should be concerned about efforts to stymie the development of PBAs, as these products make plant-based lifestyles palatable for a wide range of consumers, and the more this industry grows, the costs for the products will fall, and the products themselves will become more analogous to the meat products they are crafted to substitute. Ultimately, this could displace the demand for meat and dairy products, lessening the number of animals raised in confinement.

In writing both these comments, I learned how to synthesize a lot of information and transform them into pointed, concise arguments. I also worked on tailoring my tone to fit the purpose of a public comment, rather than writing in an adversarial fashion. Ultimately, I discovered that a lot of effort and research goes into crafting effective public comments.”