Landbased Salmon Handbook - Undercurrent News

To complement my list of 325 on-land fish farm systems, and my Good News Post for more than 500 news/papers/analyses, Undercurrent has put together a land-based handbook on how to do the deed.

Norway emerges as surprise leader in developing land-based salmon farms

"Growing salmon to harvest weight in land-based farms is a technology that could potentially unseat the dominance of top industry suppliers Norway and Chile. But it is also an opportunity for two producing nations to leverage their operational expertise.

Norway, surprisingly, is developing more land-based farms than any other country, including China, Japan, and the US. There are more than 20 land-based salmon farms currently under consideration in Norway, according to The Land-based Salmon Handbook, a joint publication by Spheric Research and Undercurrent News. This surpasses the 14 projects we identified for the US market.

If all developed, Norway would add 483,800 metric tons of salmon supply to the 1.3 million tons that it currently produces from traditional sea-pen farming. There are only five other projects to grow salmon on land in the rest of Europe, and the biggest of those will be built on the Swedish coast, 20 miles away from the border with Norway.

Click below for more information on the The Land-based Salmon Handbook, or if you would like to order a copy."

Read more here: https://www.undercurrentnews.com/report/land-based_salmon-handbook/

Cermaq Takes Aim at Nova Scotia

Hi Cermaq/Undercurrent News

Below are a few comments on the following Undercurrent News post for April 10, 2019: https://www.undercurrentnews.com/2019/04/09/kiemele-cermaq-canada-wont-settle-for-second-best-in-nova-scotia/?utm_source=Undercurrent+News+Alerts&utm_campaign=b61b05a21f-Americas_briefing_Apr_09_2019&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_feb55e2e23-b61b05a21f-92426209.

Industry likes to sell itself to governments on jobs and revenue. The problem is: the stats are inflated.

By analyzing the new BC Stats report on the ‘fishing sectors’ as they term it, I show that Cermaq et al’s BC revenue at $777.3M, is $582.9M higher than its contribution to BC GDP, meaning a lot of revenue is taken home to Norway and shareholders, and does not benefit the BC economy at all – up to 300% more than GDP contribution.

Similarly, the claim that BC revenue is $1.5B is, to put it mildly, ‘incorrect.’ As noted, BC Stats has it at $777.3M, so, the industry claim is 193% too high.  

On jobs, Cermaq et al, including DFO, like to say there are 7,000 jobs in BC. BC Stats says it is 1800, or the industry claim is 389% too high. In fact, the new BC Stats report says employment has fallen in fish farms since 2000, almost two decades ago. See: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2019/03/mar-21-2019-bc-stats-report-2016.html.

So, no, the industry cannot be sold on jobs and revenue – in NS, BC or anywhere else. And the environmental cost is also high. I calculate the BC sewage cost, conservatively, at $10.4B, with up to 5.76B fish killed to feed one crop to harvest (links upon request). These costs need to be determined in NS so the public knows the facts.

No doubt the processing/hatchery/fish farm jobs and revenue for expansion in NS are similarly inflated, with environmental costs ignored.

The move to NS is widely seen as needed because the door on in-ocean fish farms in BC is closing with the Broughton Archipelago being the first of many areas, and Clayoquot Sound, a UNESCO Biosphere, incompatible with in-ocean fish farms, to come. Cermaq has the big number of fish farms in that slow-flushing body of water, with wild salmon on the brink of extinction, particularly chinook, estimated at only 501 fish in six streams. Kennedy sockeye have not returned from commercial over-fishing in the ‘90s when fish farms moved in.

Despite what Cermaq might say, in-ocean fish farming is a method of the past. My post shows 274 different on-land fish farm systems around the world: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2016/05/152-different-on-land-fish-farm-systems.html.

And here is a post that has almost 100 good news posts on on-land fish farms in just the past few months: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2018/11/links-to-on-land-closed-containment.html.

Kiemele’s comment that Cermaq, “in Canada, is focused on using mechanical alternatives to solve sea lice problems,” is also bunkum. In 2018 they got 2 million litres of Paramove 50 to dump into the ocean, like Silent Spring, in Clayoquot. Here is a toxicity paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0044848613005735.

And, Cermaq’s 2018 sea lice treatment graphs show cyclical lice levels all summer long, indicative of resistance to drugs. And, no ‘mechanical methods’, only chemicals. The mechanical methods are a last ditch stand – once lice have become resistant to all chemicals – to avoid getting out of the water. Not to mention they also applied for an Emergency Drug Release for Lufenuron in 2019. I am currently writing a post on chemical use in Clayoquot, where the Indigenous are against fish farms.

Here are graphs of Cermaq’s lice graphs. Note the peaks and troughs: https://livingoceans.org/sites/default/files/Lice%20report%20final_0.pdf. See Bawden, for example, on page 7.

In closing, let me add that you should give up the spin of ‘educating’ the public to like in-ocean fish farms. That was invented in the 1970s and has been patronizing and silly for 50 years.

And even more in closing, the note about going to Tasmania has some humour as the public there has risen in protest against fish farms, particularly Tassal, like everywhere else in the world. Note that my BAD NEWS BITES posts are now nearing 4,500 problems in the global fish farm/seafood industry. Here is one post: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2018/12/bad-news-bites-global-problems-in-fish.html.

Time to get out of the water guys.

DC Reid

Cermaq: https://www.cermaq.com/wps/wcm/connect/cermaq/news/mynewsdesk-press-release-2858459/mynewsdesk-press-release-2858459

Setting Undercurrent News Straight - Global Fish Farm/Seafood Industry 'Press'

Hi Jason

Just so you know, the Discovery Islands are 250 kms north west of Victoria, they are not close by, as your article says: https://www.undercurrentnews.com/2019/02/07/british-columbia-prv-report-winds-minimal-risk-to-wild-sockeye/.

It is also wrong to say that the Washington State Cooke collapse affected anything in BC – different countries.

The Broughton Archipelago situation has been contentious for 30 years with the local First Nations wanting fish farms out – nothing to do with Cooke. And Clayoquot Sound is the next place for First Nation action.

The science is poorly characterized by DFO as saying PRV doesn’t affect wild BC salmon. In fact, DFO’s own, and star scientist, Kristi Miller has published papers on PRV causing HSMI in BC, as well as jaundice/anemia in chinook salmon.

DFO is overlooking this as it doesn’t agree with what it wants to do, which is support in-ocean fish farms. It’s Rapid Science Response was criticized by former DFO scientist and Pacific Salmon Foundation CEO Brian Riddell as not passing the test on science. Here is one post: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2018/11/fake-science-by-dfo-riddell-response.html. That post also has the long term view on DFO managing wild salmon into extinction for 50 years, and the linked post shows what to do.

The reality here is that the Wild Salmon Advisory Council, a BC initiative, may actually end up solving the wild salmon problem. You see, Ottawa, where DFO is from, is some 3,500 miles from BC, and a five hour flight to Toronto, with connections to and through Vancouver and Ottawa, requiring even more time each way. DFO is in a different country and does not get BC.

We can only hope that BC, which can have responsibility for freshwater habitat restoration, will finally take over wild salmon from the bureaucrats in Ottawa.

Here is a cut-to-the-chase response on the BC Council’s recent recommendations for wild salmon: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2019/03/report-made-in-bc-wild-salmon-strategy.html.

In closing, let me add that the Dzawada’enuxw court case may cause big changes as well. The recent Tsilhqot’in decision is relevant to the question of land/water ownership and they have the same lawyer who won that case, Woodward.

DC (Dennis) Reid