Organic label may elude B.C. salmon farmers
Scott Simpson, Vancouver SunMETRO VANCOUVER - British Columbia salmon farmers' reliance on a foreign species, Atlantic salmon, may prove costly for them in the United States.
A U.S. federal advisory board that develops criteria for organic products is recommending that farmed salmon and other farm-raised fish get an organic label that would greatly enhance their popularity among U.S. consumers.
However, the U.S. National Organic Standards Board wants to impose rules that effectively disqualify non-native species that are raised in net pens.
That means the overwhelming majority of fish produced by B.C. salmon farmers would fail a basic U.S. organics test - and create a potential disaster for the province's single-largest agricultural export.
Atlantic salmon account for most of the salmon produced in B.C.'s $350-million aquaculture industry - and 90 per cent of what's grown here is shipped to the United States.
But Atlantic salmon are alien to the Pacific Ocean, and were brought to the West Coast only because they have proven cheaper and easier to grow in captivity than indigenous species such as chinook and coho.
B.C. salmon farmers' insistence on raising them here in open net pens - from which escapes, disease and pest transfer are common - would disqualify them from the organic label.
The recommendations of the U.S. board now go forward for public comment, leading to a final decision by the National Organics Program, which is run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The board's recommendations, if accepted, could leave B.C. operators at a significant competitive disadvantage to east coast U.S. and Canadian producers, said Shauna MacKinnon, markets campaign coordinator for Living Oceans Society.
"They heard a lot of public comments about the impacts of salmon farms in the Pacific Northwest," MacKinnon said. "They were struggling to have a standard that would not allow harmful practices like what we've seen here.
"In that respect, it's good."
MacKinnon noted that the standards board, in its final consideration of farm fish recommendations on Wednesday, decided to specify that only local, native fish species could be raised in open-net pens.
"Atlantic salmon would not be included in that. That is one of the things they wanted to include, to protect against the impacts of escapes of invasive species."
MacKinnon noted that a shift to closed containment facilities, which effectively prevent transfer of disease and pests such as sea lice to wild salmon, would probably allow Atlantic salmon farmers in B.C. to earn the organic label.
However, that method has been persistently rejected by farmers as well as the B.C. government - despite recommendations last year by a committee of the legislature in favour of an immediate move to closed containment farming.
NDP fisheries critic Robin Austin, who chaired the legislature's sustainable aquaculture committee in 2006-2007, noted that the U.S. board's recommendations are echoing the recommendations of the committee.
"We still don't understand why the government hasn't enabled anything beyond a couple of recommendations from the aquaculture committee," Austin said in a telephone interview.
Austin wondered how fish farmed anywhere in the world would qualify - given that wild fish, not subject to quality control or screening for disease, are a primary food input at the farms.
He also noted that farmers here and elsewhere use chemical products to remove sea lice, which would clearly disqualify them from an organic label.
"The sad thing is that if they were willing to make some changes, I think the industry could thrive here. We have incredible people working on this issue here, but they aren't willing to take the big step forward."