Tuesday 24 March 2015

Lice in Norway, Free Ride in BC, Canada



Lice are such a bad problem in Norway where the BC industry is from, and they are so resistant to all the chemicals, that the government has finally said they can increase the numbers of fish, if their lice counts are down.

At first and subsequent glances, this seems very strange. Let’s see, count fewer lice, make more money? Pay fish farmers if they reduce lice? It should be: they get taken out of the water for good. And who is doing the counting? After all, the CEO of Marine Harvest last year said he was angry with fish farmers because 40% of them don’t report their lice counts.

So, we pay fish farms that don’t submit numbers? Who will be doing this counting? Government? I am sure I could come up with a lower lice count easily, and then not report those numbers.

The other issue is that the companies then pay $123,854 US for a permit to raise 5% greater biomass of fish, assuming they can count fewer lice – maybe the farms not reporting will climb to 60%. 

And their licences are about $1.69 million. In BC, Canada, the licences are about $5000. So fish farms are subsidized in BC by almost S!.64 Million. This is a powerful reason to say they should be on land, because they are so highly subsidized in Canada that they can easily afford to be high and dry.

 SEAFOODNEWS.COM [Reuters] - March 20, 2015 - 
OSLO, Norwegian fish farmers will be allowed to boost their output by five percent if they succeed in complying with significantly stricter sea lice restrictions, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries said on Friday.
Fish farmers must pay one million Norwegian crowns ($123,854) for the new permit. Only those who meet a limit of an average 0.1 sea lice per fish, well below the limit of 0.5 lice under current regulations, will be allowed to increase output...



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