An opinion piece in today's Globe and Mail is full of righteous outrage and huff-and-puff about farmed salmon (aquaculture), specifically about how the British Columbia and Canada governments are conspiring to willfully wreck an industry that produces what it calls the most sustainable source of protein in the world (by which I assume it means animal protein).
The authors, mainly from the aquaculture industry, predictably enough, are complaining about the recent decision by the government of Canada to phase out all open-net salmon farms off the BC coast, which is under dispute by the industry. Most environmentalists and First Nations in the area are fully in favour of the phase-out.
The debate over farmed salmon has been going on for decades, with strong opinions on both sides. Due to polluted waterways, habitat destruction, overfishing and climate change, wild salmon are an endangered species, and so farmed salmon, on balance, is probably a better option (whatever the foodies might tell you). It is certainly among the most sustainable animal protein available, but is it really as environmentally blameless as claimed?
If you read an article like this one from Sea West News and many others from salmon advocacy and lobby groups (of which there are many - this is BIG business, around $20 billion a year big), you might get the impression that all is hunky-dory in the world of aquaculture. If, however, you read a critical article (this one from Time is a good introduction), you realize that there is much we are not being told.
Farmed salmon are bred to grow fast in cages, packed so tightly that they are rife with parasites and disease. An estimated 15-20% of farmed salmon die each years as a result, a mortality rate three to four times the rate of factory chickens, and five to six times that of feedlot cattle. Like industrially-raised chickens, which is probably the closest land analogy, they are doused regularly with pesticides and antibiotics (including some banned neurotoxins). But, even so, sea lice and viruses leak out from the farmed cages to infect wild salmon passing by. Untreated waste from excess feed, decomposing dead fish, excrement and chemical residue falls to the ocean floor, coating it with a toxic slime that presents a health risk for marine life for some distance around.
Farmed salmon typically contains seven times the levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a probable carcinogen, as wild salmon, as well as elevated levels of drug-resistant antibiotics, all of which concentrate in the bodies of human consumers. The risks, of course, are much greater for infants, children and pregnant mothers, but there is a good reason that nutritionists recommend wild salmon over farmed salmon (after which it becomes a matter of conscience).
Farmed salmon is probably not even that sustainable in other respects, despite the accolades. A quarter of all the fish harvested in the world's oceans goes to aquaculture and pet food. Huge industrial trawlers off the coasts of West Africa and Peru in particular are responsible for this catch, robbing local subsistence fishers of their livelihoods and leading to substantial food insecurity in those regions.
Recent court cases have challenged fish farming's advertising claims of sustainability. The world's largest salmon farmer, Mowi ASA of Norway, which routinely prevails in the protein sustainability indices, recently settled one such case out of court, paying $1.3 million and agreeing not to advertise its products as "sustainably sourced" or "naturally raised" in North America.
So, as you see, not as black and white as some would have you think. The Globe article paints a picture of Canadian salmon being replaced by Norwegian or Chilean farmed salmon, which clearly would be a retrograde step in environmental and sustainability terms. But that is not necessarily the only stark choice available.
The salmon farming industry could clean up its act, for one thing. Another alternative is what are called "recirculation aquaculture systems", where fish are farmed in closed-containment facilities on land, using filtered, recirculated water, so that the farmed salmon do not interact with ocean fish at all, and the use of chemicals and the damage to the ocean environment is minimized or all but eliminated. Or, of course, there is always - shock horror! - non-animal plant-based protein. Oh and, just in case you were wondering, salmon hatcheries are not a great solution, either.
Sure, the Globe article is just an opinion piece. But many people will have read it as gospel truth, and there's the rub.
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