A long way for GM salmon
There is a long way from an FDA-approval to industry acceptance, especially in Europe, according to SalmoBreed.
AquaBounty has been approved by FDA on commercial production and sales of GMO-salmon. This product is not to be confused with salmon from family based breeding programs,in relations to genetically quality and ethics. There is a long way from an FDA-approval to industry acceptance, especially in Europe.
Norway based SalmoBreed and the sister company StofnFiskur at Iceland, is running one of the most advanced breeding program on Atlantic Salmon using the latest breeding technologies. Such as Genomic Selection (GS) and QTL. Working long term systematically with breeding, toay’s commercial salmon is robust, fast growing with increased resistant against diseases.
AquaBounty is not engaged in any breeding program, but only concerned about genetic manipulation for growth. This kind of genetics can not be compared to the family selection breeding-programs that our products are based upon, says Dr. Borghild Hillestad, Genetics and Genomics Manager in SalmoBreed AS in a comment.
"Calculations and data from our broodstock are showing a genetic growth improvement of ca 13% per generation of salmon," Dr Hillestad explains.
"This is in addition to the other positive traits such as robustness, disease and parasite resistance," she says.
"We believe that GMO-salmon is a blind track and not a solution to the current salmon industry challenges," says Rudi Ripman Seim, Product Manager in SalmoBreed AS.
"When comparing data on growthrate of GMO-salmon with salmon from family selection programs, there is no significant differences found. In these data, production related challenges such as diseases and parasites has not even been taken into account, which may influence survivval and growth rates even more," Mr Seim concludes.
