As the boat floats alongside the fishpen, the trainee fish-farmers take turns scooping out handfuls of specially-formulated fish feed and flinging it into the pen.

Becoming fish farmers

Bill Thompson - one of the academy’s four students - says it takes practice to get it right. “I'm not getting it spread over there very well.”

The surface of the water literally bubbles as thousands of cod come up to feed. They’re monitored from the boat by an underwater camera.

The 59-year-old navy veteran and former commercial fisherman says taking the course has convinced him that aquaculture is the way to go.

“Even if the wild stocks came back to their fullest capacity, they still wouldn't feed the world," says Thompson. "So this is the way of future. And it's feasible for a family to run a business also.”

That’s why Thompson’s son, also named Bill, is a student at the academy as well.

The younger Thompson has been a working fisherman for most of his 39 years. He makes his living diving for urchins and fishing for lobster. But with a wife and four kids to support, he says it’s time for a change.

“I've seen a depletion of the source of everything I've been harvesting over the years," he says. "I look into the future, I can't see my kids set up in what I'm doing right now as far as, you know, lobstering, urchining. I don't want to see them get a source that's depleting every year.”