Taxpayer Support for Fish Farms - Too Much Money To Ruin Our Ocean and Kill Our Salmon

Here is a table from the 2004 report by Sarah K. Cox, link below.

Taxpayer Support of the Aquaculture Industry, 1997-2004: Some Big Ticket Items

Next time fish farms complain about the cost of on-land fish farming, tell them they have received more than $100 million to trash our oceans.  And this list is only from 1997 to 2004.

Year                     Amount                          Description

1997-98              $40,000,000                     To the NBSGA for compensation for ISA

1998                     $6,300,000                      DFO money used for aquaculture science

2000                   $20,000,000                      To ACRDP for aquaculture research and development

2000                   $14,400,000                      To AquaNet for aquaculture research and development

2000                        $800,000                      Paid to Heritage and others to accommodate for ISA             

2000                        $400,000                      Paid to NBSGA from N.B. government

2002                     $3,750,000                      Paid to BCARD for aquaculture research ($2.75

                                                                     million came from Fisheries Renewal money)

2002                     $1,250,000                      To support the UBC Aquaculture Research Chair

1997-2003               $831,537                      Money paid directly to the BCSFA

1999-2003            $1,004,750                      To CAIA from DFO and HRDC

1994-1998            $6,400,000                      $1.6 million in annual funding to the NRC

2004                     $2,300,000                       Forgiven fines and back rents for B.C. salmon farms

2004                     $7,500,000                       Loan to deal with ISA

2004                     $2,400,000                       To set up the Centre for Aquatic Health Sciences

Total                 $107,336,287

These figures come from: http://web.idv.nkmu.edu.tw/~tomhsiao/S%20T%20Management/DiminishingReturns_final.pdf. It is titled: Diminishing Returns, An Investigation into the Five Multinational Corporations that Control British Columbia’s Salmon Farming Industry, by Sarah K. Cox.

Do remember that that is $107 Million of our money paid to multi-billion dollar, multi-national companies, from Norway. They should be paying us for all the years they use our oceans and degrade them. 

And this $107 millon does not even count the $177 million we paid fish farms for their diseased dead fish. In total, that's $284 million we taxpayers paid to fish farms to fill our oceans with sewage, disease, algal blooms and lice. We don't want to pay. See: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2016/01/taxpayers-pay-for-diseased-dead-fish.html.

And there is even more money given to fish farms. We taxpayers in BC don't want our money spent on an industry that openly ruins our oceans:

Some projects funded by the ACRDP:

• $146,000 for the B.C. Salmon Farmers Association to study resistance to Kudoa

disease in farmed Chinook salmon.

• $215,400 to the B.C. Salmon Farmers Association to examine risk factors associated with the Kudoa parasite

• $64,000 to Marine Harvest Canada (Nutreco) to study genetic variations in

farmed Chinook salmon and resistance to Kudoa.

• $116,600 to Omega Salmon Group to examine the impact of stress on the susceptibility of salmon to the Kudoa parasite.

• $100,000 to Heritage Salmon, the only commercial producer of farmed haddock in the world,for a project “to improve the quality of eggs resulting from the spawning of haddock by manipulating the spawning cycle of broodstock.”

• $175,000 to Omega Salmon Group (Pan Fish) to determine the best methods and techniques for improving handling and increasing survival of broodstock eggs.

• $96,200 to EWOS Canada (Cermaq) to study alternatives to costly marine fish oils as nutrition for sablefish, a “candidate” species for aquaculture.

• $135,000 to Heritage Salmon, St. Laurent Gulf Products and Maple Leaf Foods Agresearch to study how to reduce production costs by experimenting with different types of fish feed.

• $206,000 to Marine Harvest Canada (Nutreco), Stolt Sea Farm, Aquamix Research Ltd, Lyuquot Seafood Ltd, ALS Environmental and North Island Laboratories to study whether shellfish-finfish polyculture is a viable option for the B.C. aquaculture industry.

• $25,000 to eight salmon farming companies, including Stolt, Heritage, Omega, Marine Harvest and Cermaq to examine the abundance of algae at specific salmon aquaculture sites.

• $135,000 to Stolt Sea Farm to examine environmental constraints affecting the long-term viability of aquaculture in the Broughton archipelago.

• $67,500 to Stolt and Cermaq to use genetic markers to determine the variation

of existing strains of Atlantic salmon in production on Canada’s west coast.

Total:   $1,481,100

Talk about conflict of interest of the BC and Federal Governments. See what ACRDP gave out:

 Aquaculture Collaborative Research and Development Program (ACRDP). In August 2000, Canada’s fisheries minister Herb Dhaliwal established a $75 million “Program for Sustainable Aquaculture.” Included in the program was a $20-million fund over five years for aquaculture research and development. The Aquaculture Collaborative Research and Development Program (ACRDP) is a partnership between DFO researchers and salmon farming companies and other aquaculture companies.

Scientific research projects are proposed by industry. Industry and government both fund the projects, with industry contributions averaging approximately 25 percent of total costs. Research is conducted at DFO facilities or at aquaculture sites in partnership with DFO researchers.