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Bidens Kick off First Easter Egg Roll in Two Years

US President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden do a reading of a book at the annual Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, US, April 18, 2022. (Reuters)
US President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden do a reading of a book at the annual Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, US, April 18, 2022. (Reuters)
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Bidens Kick off First Easter Egg Roll in Two Years

US President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden do a reading of a book at the annual Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, US, April 18, 2022. (Reuters)
US President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden do a reading of a book at the annual Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, US, April 18, 2022. (Reuters)

After a pandemic hiatus, President Joe Biden, first lady Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris launched the first White House Easter Egg Roll in two years on Monday, resuming an annual tradition for children that dates back to 1878.

"Ready, set, go!" Biden shouted and blew a whistle to begin the festivities, in which children race to roll pastel-colored eggs down a portion of the South Lawn using long-handled spoons.

A light rain did nothing to put a damper on an event in which 30,000 children and adults were participating. Many top administration officials were on hand for the egg roll, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House press secretary Jen Psaki and their children.

"My job is to keep it from raining for another two minutes," Biden said in remarks from the White House balcony, standing alongside Mrs. Biden and two people wearing Easter Bunny costumes.

While Harris blew a whistle to launch a wave of egg rollers, the Bidens went to another a section of the lawn to read a children's book, "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” They were soon joined by NBC's "Tonight Show" host Jimmy Fallon, who read aloud his children's book, "Nana Loves You More."

The theme of the event was "egg-ucation," and the South Lawn was set up with an education theme. Jill Biden is a community college professor.

The egg roll event is a tradition begun by then-President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1878. The coronavirus pandemic forced cancellation of the event in 2020 and 2021.

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Farmed Production of Some Fish - and Seaweed - is Soaring

Farmed salmon -- like the ones grown in pens here in the Australian island state of Tasmania -- are easier to grow than some other fish species. Gregory PLESSE / AFP/File
Farmed salmon -- like the ones grown in pens here in the Australian island state of Tasmania -- are easier to grow than some other fish species. Gregory PLESSE / AFP/File
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Farmed Production of Some Fish - and Seaweed - is Soaring

Farmed salmon -- like the ones grown in pens here in the Australian island state of Tasmania -- are easier to grow than some other fish species. Gregory PLESSE / AFP/File
Farmed salmon -- like the ones grown in pens here in the Australian island state of Tasmania -- are easier to grow than some other fish species. Gregory PLESSE / AFP/File

The amount of farmed seafood we consume -- as opposed to that taken wild from our waters -- is soaring every year, making aquaculture an ever-more important source for many diets, and a response to overfishing.

According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, nearly 99 million tons of aquatic animals (fish, molluscs like oysters and mussels and crustaceans like prawns) were farmed around the world in 2023, five times more than three decades ago.

Since 2022, the farming of aquatic animals has been steadily overtaking fishing around the world -- but with large disparities from species to species.

Fast-growing species

The two biggest sellers on the market in 2023, carp and tilapia, mainly came from freshwater farming, while other widely-consumed fish, like herring, came just from deep sea fishing

Thierry Laugier, a researcher at Ifremer, France's national institute for ocean science and technology, told AFP that fish farmers choose species that grow quickly and with simple requirements, to be able to control the life cycle.

Sales of the most widely farmed fish in Europe, Atlantic salmon, came to 1.9 million tons in 2023, 99 percent of which were farmed.

"We know how to control the ageing or how to launch a reproduction cycle, through injecting hormones," Laugier said.

Asia main producer
Asia is by far the biggest producer of farmed fish, accounting for 92 percent of the 136 million tons -- of both animal and plant species -- produced under manmade conditions in 2023.

"For carp, it comes down to tradition, it has been farmed for thousands of years on the Asian continent," the Ifremer researcher said.

At the other end of the spectrum, sardines and herring are just fished in the oceans, mainly for profitability reasons as some fish grow very slowly.

"It takes around two years to get an adult-sized sardine," Laugier said.

He said farming of some fish has not yet been started as, "for a long time, we thought the ocean was an inexhaustible resource".

Seaweed

Little known in the West, seaweed nevertheless accounts for almost a third of world aquaculture production.

Almost exclusively from Asia, seaweed production increased by nearly 200 percent in two decades, to 38 million tons. It is mainly used in industry, in jellies, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, the expert said.

He said seaweed also has the major advantage of absorbing not just CO2 in the oceans, but also nitrogen and certain pollutants.

"And from an ecological point of view it is better to farm macroalgae than salmon," Laugier said.