Phony Fish Farm Stats - CHEK TV Duped by Fish Farms

Just like all the other media out there, CHEK, our local TV station, just uses fish farm/DFO figures as though they are accurate, and does not work to ground proof what they are told.

This is the note I sent to CHEK on a recent story of theirs. The point is that they have to check these things. Note that the actual GDP effect is 3.9% of what fish farms claim it is.

See:

You [CHEK] quoted fish farms saying that the industry is worth $1.6B to the economy and has 6,610 jobs.

The real stats are: $61.9M to GDP from all aquaculture, and job numbers are 1,700 multiplier jobs, and only 820 actual jobs.

See the BC stats figures here: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2017/09/fish-farms-are-small-in-bc-jobs-and.html. I put a table at the end of the article, and searched out the actual number of jobs.

By comparison, there are 140,000 jobs in logging, putting fish farm actual employment at .5% of logging. That is how small they are.

When fish farms or DFO quote you figures, you should also point out that their stats can be far in excess of the real stats.

For example, the real multiplier number is only 25.7% of the fish farm claim of multiplier jobs. And actual jobs are only 12.4% of their claim.

As for GDP effect, it is only 3.9% of what they claim. That is how small they are.

DC Reid