Farmed and Dangerous Blog

Canada’s federal government announced an investment of 1.2 million taxpayer dollars towards aquaculture promotion including a “salmon public relations campaign.” This investment in image management is a testament to the widespread negative public opinion of the net-cage salmon farming industry, as well as an astonishing failure on the part of government to invest in real solutions that address the source of the industry’s declining reputation – unsustainable salmon farming practices.

This news comes as criticism of the industry becomes increasingly mainstream. Oprah Winfrey’s magazine recently ran an article on sustainable seafood, advising her millions of followers against farmed Atlantic net-cage salmon in favour of sustainably-caught wild or closed containment-raised salmon. William Shatner has urged Canadians to support a private member’s bill requiring the salmon farming industry to move its operations into closed containment. Vancouver Canuck Willie Mitchell recently submitted a comment to the Cohen Commission of Inquiry into the 2009 collapse of the Fraser River sockeye, asking that the industry move to closed containment to alleviate pressure on wild stocks.

The net-cage industry is faced with a formidable challenge, but technological solutions are on the table. Government investment, our taxpayer dollars, should be spent on developing real solutions rather than simply attempting to sway public opinion.

Take the case of closed containment technology – while repeated calls for government investment have been largely ignored, industry has argued for years that start-up/capital costs would be too high and that the technology wouldn’t work.

The old arguments ignore the science of net-cage impacts and omit the costs of net-cage farming to the environment from the equation; for example, current open net-cage practices allow for free dumping of farm waste into our oceans. They also ignore evidence of farmed fish thriving in land-based closed facilities where they face few predators and the risk of spreading parasites and disease to wild stocks is negligible.

While energy use is clearly an important issue, simplified arguments being circulated concerning a high carbon footprint play on the public’s climate change anxieties and dismiss alternative energy trends and the technology’s green potential. Because closed systems are designed to capture fish waste, this could be used to produce energy using bio-digesters, perhaps enough to run all the equipment required to power the entire facility. These systems can also be sited closer to processing plants and communities so less fuel is required for the transportation of fish, equipment, crews and feed when compared to net-cage operations.

Only a transition to sustainable aquaculture practices will truly affect public perception of the salmon farming industry. No amount of industry spin will stop the devastating environmental impacts of net-cages, or save the industry’s plummeting reputation. Canadians should expect their governments to spend taxpayer dollars on the creation of sustainable jobs, ecosystems and communities. Leave reputation management to the companies.

Tags: closed containment, government funding, green tech, sustainability