Organic standards for aquaculture contemplated
The US National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) is holding a meeting this week (November 17-19) in order to continue its delibaration over standards for organic aquaculture. Not surprising, the BC based Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform (CAAR) is objecting to any such standards being adopted for the conventional net-pen rearing of salmon, and the use of marine-based protein for the feeding of cultured fish.
"Allowing practices that are harming wild fish and marine ecosystems in ‘organic’ standards would hurt the credibility of the label. Open net pen farming operations cannot control the transfer of diseases and parasites to wild fish, the escape of farmed fish, or pollution of the marine environment. And using wild fish in feed runs the risk of undermining the stability of both global marine and human food systems. If the proposed standards for net pens go forward, the NOSB does not have mechanisms in place to evaluate or enforce many of the safeguards they have tried to incorporate. This leaves the standards open to interpretation in ways that can continue to have detrimental impacts on wild fish and our oceans", states the CAAR web site, which urges people to provide them with petitions against the adoption of organic standards for salmon farming in net pens. A professional assessment of the issues would most likely conclude that organic certification of salmon farmed in net pens in BC would be a natural development;
- Disease transfer: Farmed salmon is probably the healthiest livestock farmed in BC, with high survival rates and low use of medicines. All disease agents found in farmed salmon in BC are endemic to the area
- Escaped farmed fish: Most of the salmon farmed in BC are Atlantic salmon. Despite decades of attempts to establish wild populations, all intentional and non-intentional introductions of this fish have failed to establish spawning populations. Atlantic salmon has shown a miserable ability to survive in the wild in BC, and it can not spawn and produce viable offspring with Pacific salmon
- Pollution of the Marine Environment: BC has a regulatory regime in place specifically for waste generated by farmed salmon. These regulations ensure that any impacts from the deposition of organic waste produced by the caged fish is limited to the immediate area near the salmon farm, that it is reversible, and not increasing over time. The level of potential impact is monitored continuosly, and must be below a regulated threshold before the farm site can be restocked following harvesting. New technology has reduced the amount of feed being wasted to a minimum
- Using wild fish in feed: Farmed salmon convert fishmeal to edible protein much better than other livestock like chicken and pigs. If less fish meal was used in salmon feed, the result would be a reduction of world food production. The amount of fish being caught for fishmeal production would not be reduced, but rather used for feeding animals with much poorer feed conversion rates
