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Farmed Salmon is a Bust for Your Health, Pocketbook and the Environment
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studies conducted on farm-raised salmon have come to the same
conclusion: the salmon contain toxins and cancer-causing pollutants.
In this commentary, the author asks the questions, why are consumers
still eating it knowing the damaging effects on their health?
And, why is industrial salmon aquaculture so widely used?
In the article the author asks the readers to consider the
following:
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Current production methods adopt maximum economies of
scale. Thus, feedlot style, open net-pens in the oceans
simultaneously maximize consumption of marine (read: public)
resources (i.e. fresh, oxygenated water) while offloading
production wastes (feces, uneaten food) and byproducts
(toxins, antibiotic residues, escaped fish, bioamplified
parasites and pathogens).
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Each net-pen (numbering in the hundreds on both of Canada's
coasts) is tantamount to an untreated sewer outfall introducing
solid and dissolved wastes directly into the marine environment.
This is in every way "industrial waste," disposed
of at no charge.
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The unnaturally high densities of animals in the feedlot
environment of net-pens make that environment a breeding
ground for disease and parasites. Recently in British
Columbia, farm-derived parasites were implicated as the
causal agent leading to the largest salmon cohort collapse
on record anywhere in the world, ever.
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Three to five kilos of edible fish are used to make
one kilo of farm salmon; a net loss of protein badly needed
by humanity.
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The contribution of the salmon aquaculture industry
to British Columbia's gross domestic product in 2001,
as calculated by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives,
was $87 million. Marine-based industries directly jeopardized
by salmon farming, including commercial and sport fisheries
and marine tourism, contributed $582 million, or 51 percent
of the provincial total.
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Salmon farming in Canada is dominated (greater than
80 percent of B.C. production) by foreign-owned multinational
companies seemingly intent on liquidating Canada's natural
marine capital for a very small profit. A similar arrangement
characterizes the Washington state industry.
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Farm salmon overproduction (principally from Chile and
Norway) has driven the price of all salmon to all-time
lows. This forces Canadian and American farms to slash
jobs to remain competitive and has brought ruin to coastal
fishing communities across the Northern Hemisphere (which
depend on a fair price for their wild catch).
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The "to-the-point message" that we should
all see is that what is bad for the environment is bad
for our health. However, it seems that either people are
not being informed of the damaging effects of farm-raised
salmon or people are opting to ignore it. There are options
out there and we should be taking advantage of them, the
author stresses.
Seattle
PI January 25, 2004
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