TC: Fish Farms Coming to Land?

Hi Carla Wilson

I sent the following note to the TC a few days ago.

I should add that both Mowi and Cermaq are making plans for on-land fish farms in Europe. So, why do they claim here in BC that it is not possible? This is just part of their spin.

See: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2020/12/good-news-post-dec-14-2020.html. Mowi: 837, 836. Cermaq: 832. Leroy: 833, 837. Note that I have found over 800 global press articles, nothing short of an avalanche, on on-land fish farming. It is false to say it cannot be done. I have a list with over 350 actual on land fish farms around the world.

See: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2016/05/152-different-on-land-fish-farm-systems.html.

When one is reporting the news, one has to use industry figures, even when one knows they are untrue. But for analysis, look to the BC Stats Report to do the stats. As noted, industry claims 1500 jobs for Discovery, but using the govt’s own figures, it is only 212.

The other thing, and not something mentioned below, is that Norway, where Grieg et al are from, raises 10 times the farmed salmon than in Canada with a tenth of the employment because of automation. When they bring that here, almost 80% of jobs will be wiped out in BC and on the east coast.

See this and note the Inka Milewski text on employment and automation: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2019/07/fish-farm-problems-on-global-scale-inka.html. Read the Milewski paper on employment and the social indicators.

DC (Dennis) Reid

D

From: dcreid@dcreid.ca Sent: February 21, 2021 1:41 PM To: DC Reid ; tips@cheknews.ca; letters@timescolonist.com Subject: Sunday Feb 21/21 Article: Federal Plan to Close Fish Farms

Dear TC Editor

Fish farm companies have known for almost a decade since the Cohen Report that the Discovery Island fish farms were going to be closed in 2020. They had all that time to make changes, rather than come to the end of the line and say it is premature.

And for them to say that the closures will result in 1500 job losses is false.

On a metric tonne basis and the BC government’s own figures in the BC Stats Report, the actual jobs lost is only 212, and that is peanuts. Here is how you calculate the figure: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2021/01/another-sleepless-night-thousands-of-bc.html.

What is needed now is a DFO retraining program to transition in-ocean workers to on-land workers.

I would also make the on-land licenses zero dollars, while raising the in-ocean license to $1M to start and then move to the Norway numbers that these firms know well is an auction amount of $32- to $40-million range.

In addition, the feds should make a $1M transition grant to land for every in-ocean fish farm closed. Alternatively, they should lease Crown Land at zero cost for the first few years, to foster on-land fish farms.

Just so that you know, the reality is that the in-ocean BC fish farm industry is going to be wiped out by the burgeoning on-land industry in the States because it will be six times the size of the BC industry. The global on-land industry is reaching 2-million metric tons, and consumers want environmentally sound product to eat. To claim anything different is also false and five years out of date.
T
he reality is that the fish farms need to come out of the water or they will be wiped out by on land, as the US is 85% of their market.

DC Reid

One final thing: Alex Morton has done a brilliant paper on Discovery skullduggery by DFO in the past decade, starting with more than 2500 pages of documents, some FOI. See: https://alexandramorton.typepad.com/alexandra_morton/2021/02/how-a-minister-tried-to-protect-salmon-but-we-lost-a-generation-of-fraser-sockeye.html?fbclid=IwAR0hfWD2qLRDxu6I1nb01AcOVSKcJ8lo4neT7yXlQNKi2F-3Cfp9GpKzeSA.

Public engagement on the transition of open-net pen aquaculture in British Columbia

Please everyone, go and do the DFO survey to get fish farms out of the water on to land. And ask for wild salmon to be brought back.

Public engagement on the transition of open-net pen aquaculture in British Columbia.

Follow-up to Fish Farming Expert Letter to Gareth Moore

The post just before this one is what I sent to the FFE, And Gareth Moore responded to me. I then responded to him.

Here is what we both said. He seems like a reasonable guy:

Hi Gareth

A few comments: Everything I say has a reference, so if you want something, just let me know.

I agree with much of what you say.

Have a good day.

D
F
rom: Gareth Moore Sent: February 11, 2021 9:40 AM To: dcreid@dcreid.ca

Subject: Re: Canada farm closures 'are hurting technology investment'

Hi Dennis,

Thanks for getting in touch.

Sea lice are perhaps one of many factors responsible for the decline of wild salmon, but the jury's out on that. There's a difference between correlation (wild salmon have been in decline during the same period that salmon farming developed as an industry) and causation (salmon farms actually causing that decline, either by allowing lice populations to increase beyond what they would otherwise be in a particular area or by spreading disease).

[In 1900 the sockeye run from the Fraser, a major river, was 100,000,000. In 2020 the return was only 277 thousand or a quarter of one percent. DFO has also been managing the entire wild salmon resource into extinction for the past 50 years. This is at a point where we need to use the ‘precautionary principle’ to save fish.]

Salmon populations in the east of Scotland, where there are no salmon farms, and in England, where there are no salmon farms on either coast, are also in decline, so something else - or more likely, several things, are to blame in those areas, and in many other geographies.

These factors include warming seas pushing the food sources of migrating salmon further north, meaning the salmon have to swim further and arrive weaker. Predation from protected species such as seals and birds is also a factor. The biggest threat of all is man: there are more of us today than yesterday, and there'll be more tomorrow, and that puts pressure on the environment. As an example, a recent report in Washington state, where wild salmon remain at extremely low levels in some river systems despite removal of salmon farms, showed that a substance from car tyres is being washed into streams and killing wild salmon returning to spawn.

{The same is true here for seals and sealions eating 40- to 50% of juvenile coho and chinook on the way out. Also, killer whales eat primarily spawning chinook on the way back and they have reached such a low level that DFO has restricted catching of them, but so late that the whales may go extinct anyway.]

There are arguments for and against land-based farming, and perhaps the most pertinent point for BC is that the land-based farms in the US are being built close to large centres of population. If you were a salmon farmer looking to build a RAS facility to serve North America you'd choose somewhere close to where the market is, and that's not BC. On-land systems also use a lot of power and fresh water - a precious resource - and for the time being, at least, have produced precious few fish. They are also unable to produce fish at the same cost as net pen farms which use the ocean current rather than electric current.

[The same arguments were made against on-land in the US, and before that, on-land in Europe. It’s part of the spin developed from the late ‘70s. The reality is that the on-land output will soon exceed 2Million metric tonnes. In the US it will be six times the size of the BC output and with 85% of BC output going to the States, the reality is that the BC industry will be wiped out if it doesn’t come to land.]

[Also, note that Seattle, Portland and LA are three hours or less by jet. BC is as close to everywhere in the US as Atlantic Sapphire is in Florida. And land is cheap in Canada it being so large that the flight to NL is the same time as the flight across the entire Atlantic from NL. Land is cheap. Power is cheap, as BC is so large, for hydro and there is water. Canada is the second largest county in the world.]

[A comparison: BC is 11 times larger than Ireland, and BC is only 10% of Canada].

[As for production costs, some of the analysts are now saying the breakeven point has already been reached.]

That said, your suggestions for incentives are all good ones, and the sad thing is that they haven't been forthcoming from the federal government, which I personally think has treated the 1,500 salmon industry workers whose jobs are under threat appallingly.

[On the other side of the Discovery employees, are those 3.8 million BC residents who have been complaining about fish farms for the past 30 years, which is a very long time. Also, fish farm numbers are usually vastly inflated or deflated to fit their use. For example, they cite 7,000 jobs in BC, while the BC Stats Report says it is only 1800, meaning that those 1500 claimed employees are only about 385, which is peanuts compared with the sport industry employment of 9,000.]

[Here is the BC Stats Report: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2019/03/mar-21-2019-bc-stats-report-2016.html.

[And on those claimed ‘1500’ jobs and related issues are here: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2021/01/another-sleepless-night-thousands-of-bc.html. Based on metric tonnes per employee, the Discovery jobs are only 212. Even fewer peanuts.]

And I'll read the links you kindly sent me.

Regards,

Gareth Moore Editor Fish Farming Expert

Canada farm closures 'are hurting technology investment'? - Not likely

Quote: The decision by Canadian fisheries minister Bernadette Jordan to close 19 salmon farms in British Columbia has had “an immediate chilling effect on investments in technology and innovation” in the aquaculture industry, according to Tim Kennedy, chief executive of the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance (CAIA).

Oh yeah? Not really.

Read the article on Fish Farming Expert by the aquaculture lobby in BC.

See: https://www.fishfarmingexpert.com/article/canada-farm-closures-are-hurting-technology-investment/?utm_campaign=newsletter__11_02_2021&utm_source=netflex&utm_medium=email.

Here is what I wrote to Jordan on this issue:

Hi Ms Jordan

Here is what I wrote to Fish Farming Expert on an industry lobby letter to you and Trudeau about fish farms in BC.

DC (Dennis) Reid

From: dcreid@dcreid.ca Sent: February 11, 2021 8:08 AM To: 'editor@fishfarmingexpert.com' ; DC Reid

Subject: Canada farm closures 'are hurting technology investment'

Hi Fish Farming Expert

Just so you know, 75% of BC residents (in a poll), that’s 3.8Million people, want fish farms out of the water.

Why don’t they just get with it and move to land? Based on the US growth, the BC industry is going to be wiped out by the burgeoning US on-land industry.

The govt should: retrain workers, offer zero dollar licenses, with $1M for in water, offer $1M for land purchases, or offer Crown land leases for setting up on-land.

And those studies by DFO, it deliberately did not test the one thing that would put fish farms out of the water, and everyone in BC knows it: lice. That is fraudulent, and DFO is not liked by BC because they have been managing wild salmon into extinction for the past 50 years.

It studied diseases, some of which have already happened in wild salmon in BC: https://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/cohen/iles-discovery-islands-eng.html.

And, just so you know, employment in fish farms has dropped 5.3% in the past 20 years in BC, and dropped 32% in Eastern Canada. So the jobs and revenue spin is not true.

Also, employment will drop almost ten times once the Norway automation is brought to BC. That is because Norway produces 10 times the salmon that BC does with double the employment: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2019/07/fish-farm-problems-on-global-scale-inka.html. Read the Miliewski paper.

DC (Dennis) Reid