State of Salmon Aquaculture Technology - ASF, DFO

Hi Atlantic Salmon Federation

I wouldn’t be so keen on this new report, State of Salmon Aquaculture Technology from DFO: http://dfo-mpo.gc.ca/aquaculture/documents/publications/ssat-ets-en.pdf, done by Gardner Pinfold.

Gardner Pinfold has done work for the BC fish farmers and it’s recent report to them had the false employment number of 7,000. The BC Government’s own figure is 1800, making the Pinfold number 389% too high, and thus not believable.

Also, the fish farms say on-land has many negatives, but ignores the sewage of in-ocean. When I figured out the sewage cost in BC, it was a whopping $10.4B to $31.2B as a conservative estimate. See: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2017/02/fish-farm-sewage-huge-cost-to-bc.html. You can use this method to calculate the sewage cost in any province, for example, NS.

Here is your quote of the BC FF: “The report "highlights that land-based [RAS] technology requires the use of large amounts of land, water, and power, and thus has a significant environmental footprint, in particular greenhouse gas emissions," BCSFA said. "It also notes the technology has not yet been proven on a commercial scale, and needs to overcome challenges with fish quality, fish health, broodstock development, and environmental impacts before being viable."”

This is false, and is the communications spin fish farms have been using for 50 years. They ignore that Norway is fostering on-land by having free licences, while the in-ocean licence has risen to $32- $40-million. See: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2018/08/increase-license-fees-to-32-to-40.html,

And there are lots on on-land farms. I have found 308 so far: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2016/05/152-different-on-land-fish-farm-systems.html. Fish farms ignore how common on-land is. They say it doesn’t exist, and even if if did, it would be too expensive. False.

Your quote of the BC FF is: “"As the report suggests, it will be at least another two years before we understand whether commercial-scale land-based operations can be profitable, and can start addressing these mission-critical issues," BCSFA noted.” This is false. My list of on-land includes lots of studies and financial reports on on-land - DNB and Rabobank among them. And my list of good news for on-land also contains funding studies, with more than 300 entries: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2018/11/good-news-post-links-to-on-land-closed.html. 

And, your quote: "The BC aquaculture industry reports to support more than 60 businesses and organizations, is responsible for 7,000 jobs and contributes CAD1.5 billion ($1.13bn) to the economy, serving as the province’s most valuable agricultural export."

These are Gardner et all figures, and the BC government's own figure for revenue is $773M, about 50 % of the consultant's figure. See:  https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2019/03/mar-21-2019-bc-stats-report-2016.html. And its GDP is only $194.4M, compared with the other parts of the salmon sector, and only 19.2% of the total. Sport is vastly larger than in-ocean fish farms: 9000 jobs and double the contribution of fish farms, and 38.9% of the total.

DC (Dennis) Reid