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Perspectives

• Aquacultural Revolution - the scientific case for changing salmon farming>
• Fraser Sockeye Lice Infestation
• Papers for the USA Organic Aquaculture Symposium
• Salmon Ranching Examined - by Bill Vernon
• Salmon Coast Research Station - videos by Twyla Roscovich
• Feeding Farmed Salmon: Is Organic Better?- by N. Pelletier and P.Tyedmers
• Organic Farmed Salmon? - Anne Macey (B.C., Canada)
• Report Claims Farmed Salmon High in PCBs - Drew Cherry (Washington, USA)
• A Second Opinion - Paddy Doherty (B.C.)
• Developing Organic Standards for Molluscan Shellfish - R Downey (Wa.USA)

MORE ARTICLES

AQUACULTURAL REVOLUTION -The scientific case for changing salmon farming

Many prominent scientists and First Nation representatives speak their minds about the salmon farming industry and the numerous problems associated with it in the film Aquacultural Revolution.

MORE INFORMATION

FRASER SOCKEYE LICE INFESTATION - 2008

The Fraser River one of the worlds largest salmon producing rivers, if not the largest. At the end of June we visited with a research project underway in the Discovery Islands off of Campbell River where a small crew is sampling the juvenile sockeye salmon along their outmigration to sea. Most of the Fraser juvenile sockeye travel up the Inside Passage and past many of British Columbia's 130+ industrial salmon farming operations. The sampling crew is finding alarming levels of lice on these juvenile sockeye salmon which represent Canada's most important run of salmon. - Twyla Roscovich, Calling From the Coast

More videos from Calling from the Coast

SOME OF THE PAPERS PRESENTED AT THE US NATIONAL ORGANIC STANDARDS BOARD ORGANIC AQUACULTURE SYMPOSIUM - Washington DC, November 27, 2007.

Kenneth Brooks, Aquatic Environmental Sciences, Washington
A Comparison of the Environmental Costs Associated with Open Net Pen Culture of Atlantic Salmon and Production of some other human foods PDF

Andrea Kavanagh, Director, Pure Salmon Campaign
A review of research on the caused and quantities of farmed fish escapes from open net cage systems and a literature review of the impact of escapes on wild fish populations, using farmed salmon as a case study PDF

Martin Krkosek, Centre for Mathematical Biology, University of Alberta, Canada
Disease Threats of Salmon Aquaculture to Wild Fish PDF

George Leonard, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Center for the Future of Oceans
Performance Goals for Net Pen Production of Organic Finfish PDF

Sandra Bravo, Aquaculture Institute, Universidad Austral de Chile
Use of Antifouling in the Chilean Salmon Industry PDF

Torbjorn Asgard, Akvaforsk, Norway
Flexibility in the Use of Feed Ingredients can turn the farmed salmon industry sustainable PDF

Brad Hicks, Chair, Pacific Organic Seafood Association, BC, Canada
Feeding Fish, Fish Meal and Fish Oil Fulfill Organic Tenets PDF

Jonathan Shepherd, International Fishmeal and Fish Oil Organization
Sustainable Marine Resources for Organic Aquafeeds PDF

MORE INFORMATION

SALMON RANCHING EXAMINED - Bill Vernon (2007)

Discusses the impact of the release of over 5 billion hatchery-grown juvenile fish into the common pasture of the Pacific Ocean, every year.
FULL ARTICLE  [PDF 3MB]

SALMON COAST RESEARCH STATION - Twyla Roscovich (2007) CallingFromTheCoast.com

Part 1: Twyla follows the researchers and their experiments with salmon and lice relationships in the Broughton Archipelago

Part 2: the researchers conduct experiments to determine what kind of effect the sea lice from the fish farms are having on the wild salmon fry's ability to escape from predators.

Part 3: Do sea lice actually kill young wild salmon? Industry and government say "there is no evidence', but in this episode the researchers are shocked to discover how much damage one louse has caused to one of their fish.

A SECOND OPINION by Paddy Doherty, Certified Organic Associations of British Columbia

Our organisation is facing some difficult issues when trying to decide whether to certify products from aquaculture. We are compelled to adhere to our principles. We must also consider precedents from other organisations and the legal and political ramifications of our decisions. We have an unwritten contract with our consumers whereby they agree to pay considerably more (usually) for organic product based on their perceptions of our products. Consumers purchase for different reasons (I'm a consumer and I buy organic because of the environmental benefits of organic farming - I'm in the minority) but they all purchase organic with the understanding that this product is fundamentally different from the non-organic counterpart.

I have had a number of seafood companies approach me with the proposal that wild caught food is the most organic of all - and that we should certify it. The COABC (alone in the world) has resisted the certification of wild caught or "wild-crafted" foods until now. I believe this is because our conscience will not allow us to place something on the market that is not uniquely organic in some way. Organic farming is uniquely organic farming, organic processing is uniquely organic processing, and the consumer appreciates this. To label a wild-caught product 'organic' when there is no distinction between it and the same product next to it without the label, is to invite scepticism and distrust from the consumer. We have laboured for many years to build up what amounts to substantial equity in our relationship with consumers, in the form of their trust in the integrity of our organic products. Whenever we push the boundaries of the organic designation, we are spending that equity.

There is more to the phrase "BC Certified Organic" than the apparent purity of the product itself. Organic farming is a striving toward closed-loop (sustainable) systems. This is an ideal objective and it is understood that there will be variations and compromises. However, harvesting a crop from the wild is certainly not farming, nor is it necessarily sustainable.

I believe we can certify organic seafood, but the process must satisfy the principles of organic farming, it must be unique, and it must be acceptable to the scrutiny of our detractors.

FEEDING FARMED SALMON: IS ORGANIC BETTER? by N. Pelletier and P. Tyedmers (2007)

ABSTRACT: Feed provision accounts for the majority of material and energetic inputs and emissions associated with net-pen salmon farming. Understanding and reducing the environmental impacts of feed production is therefore central to improving the biophysical sustainability of salmon farming as a whole. We used life cycle assessment (with co-product allocation by gross energy content) to compare the cradle-to-mill gate life cycle energy use, biotic resource use, and global warming, acidifying, eutrophying and aquatic ecotoxiticy impacts associated with producing ingredients for four hypothetical feeds for conventional and organic salmon aquaculture in order to assess the benefits, if any, associated with a transition to organic feed use. Fish and poultry-derived ingredients generated substantially greater impacts than crop-derived ingredients. Despite the fact that organic crop ingredients had markedly lower life cycle impacts compared to equivalent conventional ingredients, substituting organic for conventional crop ingredients therefore resulted in only minor reductions to the total impacts of feed production because the benefits of this substitution were effectively overwhelmed by the much larger impacts associated with animal-derived ingredients. Replacing fish meals/oils from dedicated reduction fisheries with fisheries by-product meals/oils markedly increased the environmental impacts of feed production, largely due to the higher energy intensity of fisheries for human consumption, and low meal/oil yield rates of fisheries by-products. Environmental impacts were considerably lower when feeds contained reduced proportions of fish and poultry-derived ingredients. These results indicate that current standards for organic salmon aquaculture, which stipulate the use of organic crop ingredients and fisheries by-product meals and oils, fail to reduce the environmental impacts of feed production for the suite of impact categories considered in this study. This information should be of interest to feed producers and aquaculturists concerned with improving the biophysical sustainability of their products, and bodies responsible for aquaculture certification, eco-labeling, and consumer awareness programs.

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ORGANIC FARMED SALMON? by Anne Macey

Having seen "Net Loss", a documentary about salmon farming in BC and Chile at the Saltspring Film Festival the weekend before the COABC Conference and listened to arguments from both sides, I was pretty much convinced such practices were industrial, unhealthy and very destructive to the environment and the wild salmon stocks. Arguments about aquaculture being needed to feed a growing world population were no more credible than those used for conventional agriculture. Briefly, I wondered if there was not some other design to address the concerns but as for organic production - no way.

As I listened to this controversial topic being discussed during the Organic Salmon Farming session at the COABC conference, my thinking changed and I realized that I had been guilty of rejecting all fish farming based on problems with the industrial model. We don't reject the possibilities for organic agriculture because we are against factory farming of chickens or pigs - in fact, we use the organic model to demonstrate there are better ways.

John Heath of Yellow Island Aquaculture did a good job in describing how their operation could be a model for a more responsible production system and how it met standards for organic aquaculture production being used elsewhere in the world (e.g. by the Soil Association in the UK). He claimed that concerns raised by the environmentalists had been addressed and that it was not reasonable for COABC to deny them the possibility of applying for certification.

So, why is the Yellow Island Model so different from other fish farms on the coast? According to John Heath, they use native species, not Atlantic salmon, thus eliminating the possibility of escaped farmed species displacing native species. Also, risk of escape is low with the lower densities used. The farmed fish are often triploid and therefore sterile (when he mentioned that, I thought of the insect sterile release programs, but presumably, the numbers of escaped farmed fish would not be enough to affect the wild population). Transgenic fish are not used. The farmed fish are bred for disease resistance and fish densities are such that disease problems have not been an issue - no antibiotics are used. They coexist with low levels of endemic disease.

To determine the density they used the density found in natural school densities i.e. 5kg/m² for the feeding stage. Sea lice are found at levels that do not affect wild populations and therefore could not possibly contribute to environmental disasters like that in the Broughton Archipelago where the native stocks failed completely because fry returning to the sea were invested with lice from the farms in the area.

Feed is fish meal from the rejects of the herring roe fishery and waste from the Alaskan Salmon fishery, unlike other sources of fish meal from fisheries that could be used to feed humans directly. In Canada it is illegal to make fish feed from fish suitable for human consumption but it is obtained from South America. Wheat (organic) is used as a binder and the pigments to colour the fish are from natural sources (Haematococcus and a yeast) unlike the chemical colorants used by some fish farms such as the Roche "Carophyll Pink" (astaxanthin). Farmed fish would be grey in colour without these additions. Apparently in the wild, pigments play a significant role in disease resistance and the disease problems in most farmed salmon may be related to pigments only being added late in the production cycle.

Net cages with top nets to keep out predators are used in an area of high water flow so there is no accumulation of waste and research showed the marine ecosystem surrounding the farm to be healthy. There was no impact at all 10 metres from the pens. As part of their research program, Yellow Island is about to introduce a closed containment system using alternative technologies adjacent to the net pens to see if such models can improve the environmental and economic performance. Environmentalists often recommend closed containment models and land-based systems as having least impact but these are usually high input systems and do not solve the waste disposal problems. John also spoke of possibilities for recycling the nutrients through a polyculture system where waste settlement tanks could be stocked with rotifers which in turn could be used to rear shrimp.

Dr. John Volpe, a fisheries biologist from the University of Alberta and a critic of fish farming on the BC coast, was impressed by the Yellow Island operation and felt it was a huge step forward, but he still had concerns. He questioned whether we had the knowledge to know what the limits should be if organic standards are to be developed for Salmon. Are 5kg/m² realistic? If 2-3 lice/fish on farmed fish is the threshold for treatment why is 6/fish not a problem at Yellow Island? Fish farming profits are still dependent on natural subsidies. Dr. Volpe thinks conventional fish farms will not be in existence in 10 years because of catastrophic events in an unsustainable system, resource depletion and consumer rejection. He believes that the needed protocol is still a long way away from where we are now and if we allow the adoption of a weak process it will be more of a detriment than no certification.

The third speaker was Theresa Rothenbush from the Rainforest Conservation Society, one of the members of the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform along with the David Suzuki Foundation, Georgia Strait Alliance, BC Aboriginal Fisheries Commission and others. They work to educate consumers about the dangers of farmed salmon and to promote the adoption of a salmon farming industry that is safe for humans and the environment. Theresa listed the reforms needed:

• technology that eliminates risks of disease transfer and fish escapes
• feed that doesn't deplete global fish stocks
• ensures that wildlife not harmed
• eliminates use of antibiotics
• prohibits the use of GE fish
• labels farmed fish as "farmed"
• stops locating fish farms in areas opposed by aboriginal groups or other local communities and
• guarantees waste is not released into the environment.

Does Yellow Island meet these requirements? Should such a system be the basis for organic production?

I think this session helped but the COABC Standards Review Committee clearly still has a difficult task ahead to resolve the issues raised. Many of the reforms listed above are already covered by the proposed organic standards but some are more problematic. Social and ethical impacts are not yet specifically addressed in organic standards although they are part of the value system of organic agriculture. What about the closed containers - surely that is a long way removed from organic principles that include working with natural systems, recycling of nutrients, systems that meet the behavioural needs of livestock and so on? Would not an improved model that allows interaction with the natural environment without negative affects be more in keeping?

If we look at the principles for livestock husbandry there are obviously other problems. How important is behaviour? Caging salmon, even in free flowing water, can hardly be described as allowing natural behaviour if, in the wild, the fish roam freely and follow specific migrations. Moreover, what about Canada's 100% organic feed rule for livestock? There are indeed organic aquaculture standards being used elsewhere but for the most part these are used for freshwater species, filter feeding or omnivorous fish, shrimp and other species feeding low on the food chain. The farming of the higher value, carnivorous salmon on the West Coast poses a unique set of problems; the challenge is whether organic standards can be developed which address the environmental, ethical and social concerns here in BC.

Clearly, we need to continue the discussion with members of the Coastal Alliance and with Yellow Island Aquaculture to see if it is possible.

NEW US REPORT CLAIMS FARMED SALMON HIGH IN PCBS - 30.07.2003

Drew Cherry, IntraFish Media

Seattle (WA), USA: A new US study claims that levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in farmed salmon are significantly higher than in other proteins (pork, beef, chicken and wild salmon in the US), and as a result, consumption of the fish increases risk of cancer.

The study, "Factory Methods, Unnatural Results," released today by the non-profit research organization the Environmental Working Group (EWG), says that in "first-ever" tests of seven farmed salmon from five different countries purchased at U.S. grocery stores - including Safeway, Whole Foods, Fred Meyer and Albertson's - six had PCB levels higher than PCB intake guidelines set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Further, the report claims, the elevated PCB levels were much higher - two to 40 times higher - than the levels found in pork, beef, chicken, wild salmon and other commercially-caught seafood, and as a result, are putting farmed salmon consumers at a higher risk for cancer.

"[F]armed salmon are likely the most PCB-contaminated protein source in the U.S. food supply," researchers wrote.

Regulatory differences

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the governing body for food safety testing of commercially-caught seafood, recommends no more than two parts per billion of PCB intake in food, a threshold that most farmed salmon, industry members note, including those in the EWG test, are well below.

However, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lists its own, much lower, set of consumption guidelines for PCBs in seafood, which states use as guidelines for advisory warnings on sport-caught fish.

Based on a consumer adult body weight of 72 kg and an average fish meal size of 8 oz (0.227 kg), the EPA recommends that fish falling within the .097 - 0.19 ppm range should be eaten in an eight ounce serving only once per month, the range within which the EWG study says the farmed salmon it tested falls (the report does not provide PCB ppm for the salmon tested).

EPA and FDA advisory guidelines sometimes differ. For example, the agencies have different intake guidelines for mercury in seafood, a topic of considerable contention.

Alex Trent, interim executive director for the Salmon of the Americas (SOTA), said that since the EPA governs soil, water and air quality, they're out of their area of expertise with food safety. "They're not recognized nationally or internationally as the competent authority," he said.

But EWG researchers disagree, and are recommending that the FDA guidelines for PCB contamination, which have not been updated since 1984 and are substantially higher than the EPA's, be revisited and brought in-line with the EPA levels.

PCBs back in the news

Though the EWG throws the spotlight on PCBs in farmed salmon, the report isn't the first to explore the topic. Most notably, a 2001 study authored by Michael Easton and funded by the David Suzuki Foundation showed that PCB levels in farmed salmon were significantly higher than in wild salmon, but failed to mention that both were well within government guidelines - an oversight that drew criticism from industry and even the scientific community.

One critic was Charles Santerre, an associate professor of Foods and Nutrition at Purdue University. Santerre said that the new EWG study skews the facts in the same way the Easton's work did in 2001, and he questioned the politics behind the research. "I don't think you write this study and really have a concern with public health," he said. "You do this because you have an agenda."

Santerre said that typically, a much wider sample would be used for determining PCB levels in fish - a criticism he leveled at Easton for his eight fish sample. Additionally, he said, each type of fish would normally be ground up along with others of the same group (for example, 10 Norwegian salmon ground together), then tested and analyzed as a composite. "This is a very limited study," he said, noting that the study has not yet been peer-reviewed.

Santerre said there are other problems with the study's data presentations. He said that beef and chicken consumption is significantly higher than that of salmon, putting the cumulative load of PCBs over time from those proteins at a much higher level, a fact not mentioned in the statistic claiming farmed salmon are two - 40 times higher in PCBs.

EWG researchers often highlighted the extremes of the data they found, Santerre said, selecting PCB levels in the fish with the highest PCB levels and comparing them with the lowest thresholds of EPA data for their conclusions.

Farmed salmon causes cancer?

One of the harshest allegations leveled at farmed salmon was a potential link between cancer and farmed salmon. The group touted their cancer-risk assessment of PCB contamination in farmed salmon as the first of its kind, and said that given the consumption levels and their data on PCB levels in farmed salmon, "[W]e estimate that 800,000 people face an excess lifetime cancer risk of more than one in 10,000 from eating farmed salmon, and 10.4 million people face a cancer risk exceeding one in 100,000."

Though no direct cause and effect between PCBs and cancer has been established, PCBs have been linked to cancer and developmental problems in infants and children in several studies.

But Santerre noted that most foods have some contaminants in them, and that the average levels of farmed salmon consumption - around two pounds per person in the U.S. - still fall well within safe limits. "The dose makes the poison," he said of PCB contamination.

Industry response quick

Salmon and seafood industry members were quick to respond to the report. By mid-day Tuesday, SOTA, the British Columbia Salmon Farmers Association (BCSFA) and the National Fisheries Institute (NFI) had all released responses criticizing the report.

SOTA's Trent lashed out at the report as more scare tactics from environmental groups. "It's unscientific, it's riddled with errors, and has the same old mumbo-jumbo science," he said.

Mary Ellen Walling, executive director of the British Columbia Salmon Farmers Association (BCSFA), agreed.

"Clearly it's part of the on-going negative media campaign," Walling said. "It's making some serious allegations that are enormously inaccurate and misleading."

And the consumers?

Consumer reaction will be difficult to gauge, particularly with the media maelstrom building over the study. "Every time this happens, [salmon farmers] get questions from their customers," Trent said, noting that SOTA plans on distributing materials to retailers, foodservice and distributors to pre-empt concerns. One notable retailer is already reacting to the news, however.

Yesterday, natural foods chain Wild Oats Markets announced that it would begin purveying Clare Island Sea Farm Atlantic salmon from Ireland, which it touts as natural, sustainably-farmed - and, incidentally, low in PCBs.

"The salmon feed is tested for PCBs and is shown to have significantly lower levels of these contaminants than farmed salmon from virtually all other sources - making Clare Island farmed salmon comparable to Alaskan wild-caught salmon in terms of environmental sustainability and lower risk for contamination," the company said in a release. It added that testing showed that feed used for the Clare Island salmon tested at 0.568 parts per trillion for PCBs.

Santerre said that while the report won't likely hold up to scientific scrutiny, there are topics raised that could be studied further. "Should the industry ignore the issue? No. I think there's some things to move forward on," he said. "Is there a concern to the health of the American consumer? In my opinion, no."

Trent, meanwhile, said that SOTA was taking a pro-active approach to the report, and would "take this head on and do whatever we need to."

EWG and its recommendations

The EWG report makes a variety of recommendations in its report, from increased funding to the FDA to test farmed salmon for PCBs to a "definitive" FDA study on PCB contamination in farmed salmon to increased funding to preserve salmon habitat in Alaska. Their key recommendation, however, is that the FDA bring its advisory guidelines in-line with the EPA's.

Trent said he doubted if EWG had contacted FDA and EPA on the PCB issue, but added that if US agencies coordinate to mandate a lower PCB threshold, the industry will adapt. "If the regulations change, we'll change with them."

The Environmental Working Group is funded by private grants from a variety of private sources, including the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Beldon Fund and the Turner Foundation. Members of the EWG were not available for comment on the report.

The full report is available on EWG's website.

© 2003, IntraFish Media. Reprinted with permission. IntraFish Media is the leading provider of daily, global seafood business news at www.intrafish.com.