Commercial Aquaponics: Farmers want to expand facilities in Canada

November 20, 2008 by Amaete Umanah
Filed under: Aquaponics, Commercial Aquaponics

Mainstream aquaponics farmers want to increase its harvest at nine farms in the Broughton Archipelago, off Vancouver Island's northwest coast, to 25,521 tonnes from 7,310 tonnes, the applications show.

And Marine Harvest Canada is seeking to increase productivity to 11,462 tonnes from 3,842 at five farms in the Discovery Islands. The Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform released Ministry of Agriculture and Lands documents that show two companies have filed applications for permits to increase productivity at more than 20 different farm sites.

More than 85 per cent of Canada's aquaculture production is exported, 16,000 people are employed nationally in the industry, and 62 per cent of Canadian consumers have bought farmed salmon in the past 12 months, Ms. Salmon said.

CARR is a coalition of several groups opposed to the current practice of salmon farming, in which large numbers of fish, mostly Atlantic salmon, are raised in open-net pens in the ocean. The groups want fish farms moved to closed containment facilities to limit contact with wild salmon.

CARR has asked the government to earmark $10-million in the 2009 budget to facilitate a transition to closed-containment farming, a practice the industry rejects as too costly.

Research in the Broughton Archipelago has linked fish farms to sea-lice epidemics that have devastated some runs of wild salmon in local rivers.

And a recent study indicates salmon from the Fraser River are becoming infected with lice as they swim north on their outward migration to the Gulf of Alaska.

"It is unacceptable that an expansion of open-net pen farms would be considered just as we are seeing evidence of sea lice from these farms on Fraser River sockeye, as well as local salmon runs," said Ruby Berry, salmon-aquaculture campaign co-ordinator for CARR.

This article is courtesy of www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081120.wbcfish20/BNStory/National/home

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