On this episode, hosts Peter Ravella and Tyler Buckingham talk to Nicholas P. Sullivan about his new book, The Blue Revolution: Hunting, Harvesting, and Farming Seafood in the Information Age. Nick the story of the recent transformation of commercial fishing, a change from maximizing volume through unrestrained wild hunting to maximizing value through controlled harvesting and farming. Entrepreneurs applying newer, smarter technologies are modernizing fisheries in unprecedented ways. In many parts of the world, the seafood on our plates is increasingly the product of smart decisions about ecosystems, waste, efficiency, transparency, and quality. Nick presents talks about a new way of thinking about fish, food, and oceans, profiling the transformation of an aging industry into one that is “post-industrial”—fueled by “sea-foodies” and locavores interested in sustainable, traceable, quality seafood. Catch quotas can work when local fishers feel they have a stake in the outcome; shellfish farming requires zero inputs and restores nearshore ecosystems; new markets are developing for kelp products, as well as unloved and “underutilized” fish species.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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