I am a farmer. I have grown Atlantic salmon for the last 30 years. Salmon matter to me and I care about their welfare, the environment in which we grow them and all of the good people that work in our company.
As the FDA hears arguments for and against genetically modified salmon, the lack of vehement opposition from Environmental Non Governmental Organizations (ENGOs) seems unimpressive, even apathetic.
On the practice of aquaculture, NGOs have screamed wolf from the roof-tops to every government department and every willing ear. Yet now, now when we need them most, their voice is muted and little heard. A few demonstrations and a few quotes across the world seem all that they can muster. But this is the way of today. Corporations know that the way to play the NGOs and the public is to drip-feed bad news.
By the time that the final decision has been made, the public is bored of seeing the word 'Frankenfish.' The NGOs screamed themselves hoarse at the first mention and so now can sit back saying that they tried, but it is such an unfair world. But it really isn't good enough. These groups live in the public imagination because it is perceived that they exist to save the world, and to do this they have to raise issues of great significance to all our futures.
Well, heads up guys, this one really matters:
Why is it now practically impossible to buy GM-free soy (100 percent pure)? We all know why.
Scientists said it wouldn't escape their control. It did. Now people are contemplating growing GM salmon in 'secure' farms. Let me leave you in no doubt -- they will escape.
They will escape because we will let them, by allowing dilution of control with time. No one plans for the apathy and carelessness that comes with time. People lose interest. It's just the way it works.
When you look for the morality or reasoning behind GM salmon, it becomes much murkier. The only reasons for potentially destroying an entire species are cost and commercial gain.
No, I don't mean the cost to the environment or the human race but purely the cost of food to the consumer. The food conversion rate (food to fish ratio) is much the same. The impact on the environment is the same or worse. The only thing that improves is labor cost through faster growth. All this really means is lower employment and cheaper food.
Once cheap GM salmon are out there, the corporations will be 'forced' to use it in order to remain competitive. And where will they go to buy their GM stock? Back to that crew that invented it. (Doesn't it sound horrible to use the word invent alongside animal?)
Here you have the real reason behind its development. Forget all the theorizing about feeding the developing world -- the GM industry is about inventing animals or plants whose genetic structure is owned by a corporation.
For the record I abhor the introduction of this concept, let alone its actual production. It is fundamentally wrong and there is no argument about 'secure' farming or sterile fish will ever make me believe that GM salmon is right, useful or profitable for the human race or the planet.
It is sheer unbridled greed at the expense of my children and grandchildren and I object.
I object as an 'expert' in my field.
I object as someone that has huge respect for salmon.
I object as a citizen of this planet.
I object mostly because I have to. I cannot sit idly by, while the way of life that I cherish is defiled.
Once the FDA approves GM salmon for human consumption, the floodgates will be open. It is not just about salmon. Other GM animals will be invented. Scientists in corporate labs are working on it now. They will argue that if a GM animal is safe to eat, then it is imperative that we grow it, and so we will face a horrific new dawn.
Every person that reads this and agrees with it should write to their senator, any opinion former they know, their local paper or any media outlet. This whole sorry matter is a disgrace to salmon farming, humanity and moral food production.
Nick Joy is Managing Director of Loch Duart, an independent salmon farm in Northwest Scotland.
Jean Halloran: California Must Label Genetically Engineered Fish
A giant leap into the unknown: GM salmon that grows and grows ...
Food: FDA Judges GM Salmon - Ecocentric - TIME.com
Frankenfish -- genetically modified salmon -- take food and ...
Genetically Altered Salmon Set to Move Closer to Your Table ...
"this new salmon is part of the superior technology. If you want superior technology, you need to be guided by science, not politics."
I would suggest that what we are witnessing in the AquaBounty case is not science but political science.
Serious questions have been raised about shoddy methodology and insensitive testing, which are thought to have led to skewed data, tainted analysis, and faulty assessment, in an effort to "engineer" F.D.A. approval of GM salmon.
A good overview is at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-smith/ge-salmon-are-you-out-of_b_742413.html
then getting those same people to eat Frankenstein food is a piece-of-cake.
Not only that, but you sucker those same people into keeping it secret and hidden on food labels.
Wall Street corporatism can get away with anything because the country is full of SUCKERS.
What I meant, obviously, was *net* zero negative health and environmental impacts, i.e., no *additional* risks or negative impacts as compared with existing practices. That's not an unreasonable demand. Certainly, it's not technophobia.
What is contentious is your own insistence that GM salmon involves "better" technology. That simply has not been shown.
In making the "better" claim, you make the additional claim that GM salmon would be "replacing" the "old technology."
Are you not aware that GM salmon still would be farmed fish --- that what AquaBounty is proposing is an aquaculture project?
1) The fish would be grown in inland pools, preventing the kind of pollution and infections found in older forms of fish farming.
2)The GMO fish would mature faster, requiring less feed, less time, less energy, and producing less greenhouse gases.
3) The level of control of water and feed would eliminate the problems of mercury and PCB contamination.
If you meant "net," you should have said that. If you had, I would have pointed out that the whole point of the GMO technology is to have lower net risk. If lower net risk is what you want, this technology is the way to get it.
Remember: the old way has wrecked salmon fisheries and driven many types of salmon to extinction or the brink of extinction. THAT is where the risk lies.
That's just the way the world works.
Understand that when you talk about "the old way," you are not talking about the entire salmon farming and fishing sector. You are talking about industrial salmon farming and fishing, which, to be sure, is most of the sector --- but it is not all of it.
Granted, there are not many salmon farmers who farm as responsibly as Nick Joy and Loch Duart. But the ones who do approach issues of feed, density, husbandry, waste, and the like in ways that differ fundamentally from the industry at large --- ways that are much better for the salmon and much better for the environment.
To pretend that these practitioners are not out there setting an example for the industry is like saying that, just because we get most of our hamburger from industrial feedlot cows, people like Joel Salatin and his Polyface Farms don't exist.
The fact is, people doing it the right way *do* exist. We should be supporting them with our dollars and our forks --- not sidling up to the genetic craps table.
1. Those of us with GM concerns will continue to eat organic foods, betting that GM is in fact toxic. In particular, we will take great care not to provide children access to GM crap until they are past their reproductive years.
2. Those without GM concerns will continue to eat that crap throughout their lives. Their reliance on cow studies are misplaced, since cows are pastured during reproductive years, and not fed GM crap until they are stockyard confined.
3. If projections from some of the GM rat studies are indeed correct, the GMers will no longer be able to reproduce after about three generations, due to sterility and infertility issues. Therefore, their genetic line will cease to exist, and the organics will win by default - they will be the only ones left standing! Or not - we'll see. This is a great solution to starvation, since it will certainly reduce the population to sustainable levels.
Be patient. It really does not matter what anyone opines today. Nature, not humans, holds all the cards. Place your bets with care. The existence of your great-grandchildren may depend upon it.
Roy Mankovitz, Director
http://www.MontecitoWellness.com
The thing is, it's not about just us and *our* appetites and *our* health and *our* survival --- although it precisely is for this reason that, ironically, the introduction of GM salmon could have effects on us that are well beyond our ability to control simply by opting out of GM salmon at our favorite gourmet shop or restaurant.
When --- not if, but when --- GM salmon were to escape; and when --- not if, but when --- some of these GM salmon were to breed with wild salmon, the upshot eventually could be the eradication and replacement of wild salmon with GM salmon.
But it wouldn't be just us that no longer were able to find wild salmon on the menu. Many animals --- animals that depend on wild salmon for their survival --- would find that wild salmon had been taken off of their menus too.
But the consequences --- initially, at least --- would be far worse for these animals, since they --- unlike us --- would be forced to eat the genetically altered fish.
The real question is: What, then, would the endgame be for these animals --- and what would be the environmental knock-on effects of *that* for us?
For a discussion and references on this subject, I suggest “The Coming Famine,” by Julian Cribb. He does an excellent job defining the problems, with concepts like “Peak Water,” “Peak Soil,” “Peak Phosphate,” and "Peak Fish," but I find his solutions to be problematic, contradictory, and unlikely to be implemented.
http://www.animalwelfareapproved.org/2010/08/13/gm-gene-out-of-the-bottle-and-running-wild/
GE salmon is less nutritious than normal salmon. It has the lowest omega-3 to omega-6 ratio of all the salmon in the studies FDA reviewed.
GE salmon have mean allergenic potencies that are 20% and 52% higher than normal salmon, increasing the risk of potentially deadly allergic reactions.
With all that we know and all that we know we do not know about GE salmon, there is no other way to protect public health than to keep it out of the food supply.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_21655.cfm
Just ask yourself, why is it that Aquabounty and FDA are afraid of labeling food as GM or non-GM products?
The labeling issue has not been decided. The company, Aquabounty, has said it is willing to label this salmon as GMO.
Why are you posting comments on a topic you don't understand? I ask because I notice that anti-GMO types almos always get their facts wrong, and I wonder why that keeps happening.
I am ignorant of a lot of topics, but I don't comment on them because I recognize I am not informed. Why are GMO critics so willing to talk about things they clearly don't know about?
If GMO is so safe, then label it. Some of us want to avoid GMO products and I don't want to ask the butcher at the grocer everytime I go in. I am not anti-GMO, I am just anti-industry that is trying to pull the wool over our eyes.
The research also proves that GMO farming uses less fossil fuel, causes less pollution, reduces erosion, saves water, and boosts yields. The results are in, and GMO is clearly better.
And yet, GMO critics keep claiming (wrongly) that all of those facts are wrong. It's like talking to someone from Opposite World.
The concerns about globalization and corporate influence seem to make sense, but a closer look shows that conventional farming is experiencing the very same changes. Look at Europe, where GMO farming is largely banned. European food corporations are undergoing the same kinds of consolidation and anti-competitive behaving as their GMO competitors.
It's especially odd to hear such comments from someone like Nick Joy, who is invested in the old technology. I don't wish him any bad fortune, but it seems pretty obvious that finding more efficient ways to grow salmon will eventually reduce Joy's profits.
For those of us who care about the environment, the idea that a new technology might reduce the need for fishing or for old-style aquaculture should be welcomed as a good thing. Why should we care if someone like Joy has to either switch to the new technology or go out of business?
If it creates better food with less environmental damage, that's a positive development.
The constant claim that more (and more and more) research is needed would make more sense if any GMO food had ever been found to have some problem. GMO corn is the most tested food product in world history, and none of the numerous fears about it have come true.
At this point, it is up to the anti-GMO types to come up with some actual evidence. They have been wrong 100 percent of the time so far. I'd say that's a trend.
Comparing Loch Duart to the salmon farming industry at large is a little like comparing corn to corn curls.
Not to mention: Are we now saying that inventing new animals is the "new technology" and everything else is old hat?
Are you disagreeing with the idea that existing fish farming methods represent old technology? Or that fishing (and overfishing) represents old technology?
The new technology is an improvement over the old technology. I see nothing controversial in saying that.
Growing fish in enclosed, inland pools is a dramatic improvement over older forms of aquaculture and a huge improvement over putting even more pressure on the world's dwindling fisheries.
The blogger's main point - that not enough people objected to this salmon - contradicts my memory of the process. I clearly remember that a very large number of people objected. Nobody was denied the right to speak on this issue.
The "new and untested" arguments used against GMO food need to be retired. We've been creating GMOs since 1973. Many generations of farm animals have lived their entire lives on a GMO diet. This technology isn't perfect, but it is a huge improvement over older technology.
It is incorrect to conflate GM salmon with GM crops --- except to use Monsanto's impossible promise that its GM crops could be kept separate from non-GM crops as the object lesson for what certainly would happen with GM salmon and wild salmon.
And, for the record, the project of genetically altering animals is *not* --- as some have tried to argue --- of a piece with the domestication and selective breeding of animals that we humans have been engaged in for thousands of years. These are two completely different things.
In any case, as Nick Joy suggests, "new and untested" is pretty far down the list of reasons why GM salmon is the wrong thing to do.
In fact, I'm not so sure that it's on the list, at all.
They overwhelmingly said that this is indeed a rather obvious extension of domestication and selective breeding. The people who claim otherwise and simply wrong.
Your comparisons to grains and hybrids are misguided . The author does indeed raise some valid points about opening the floodgates to possible deleterious outcomes through GM animals.
Any useful, i.e. beneficial, solution to world hunger at this point won't be technological.
The most destructive technology in human history is old-style agriculture. It has destroyed more natural habitat than all other human activity combined. We desperately need to find less destructive ways to grow food.
GMOs in general - and this salmon in particular - are better than the technology they would replace.
Even AquaBounty acknowledges that as much as 5% of its GM salmon stocks could remain fertile. (In a scaled-up production environment, 5% is a lot.)
And: Aalmon have been shown to switch from female to male, in the wild.
I'm not sure how HazelPethigFan became a "HuffPost Community Moderator" with the snarky attitude on display below --- but he / she should be aware that Nick Joy's salmon farm, Loch Duart, is recognized as one of the most forward-thinking and sustainability-minded salmon farms -- and produces some of the most critically acclaimed salmon --- in the world. The best restaurants and gourmet shops in the United States feature Loch Duart on their menus and in their cases.
Moreover, Joy himself was --- and is --- one of the driving forces behind the development of the stewardship protocols of the RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) Freedom Food guidelines for salmon; and has been a leader in IMTA (integrated multi-trophic aquaculture), which is the raising of companion species in the same area to naturally balance nutrients.
Trust me --- Nick Joy knows what he's talking about.
I'm especially impressed with his knowledge of agricultural technology. In a nation where two percent of Americans provide the food for the other 98 percent, the ignorance about food is staggering.
Food faddists routinely make ridiculous statements about food, farming and genetic engineering, and HPF provides a welcome injection of facts into a swamp of fantasy.
It's also fair to point out that this new approach to salmon farming could cut Nick Joy's profit margins. Loch Duart salmon is so expensive that very few folks can afford to eat it. That isn't a criticism of Joy - it's just a fact that needs to be included.
Joy's method of farming salmon in pens exposes wild fish to infections and chemicals like emamectin benzoate, which kills sea lice. If the new technology can produce fish with fewer chemicals, that could make it harder for Joy to justify such high prices for luxury food. Again, that's not a criticism - just a fact.
Certainly, there likely were large-scale industrial farmers who, having already built their businesses on those corporate terms, felt that the move to GM by Monsanto and other corporate seed suppliers left them with only two choices --- go GM or stop farming (and lose their livelihoods).
Smaller-scale family farms were "squeezed" into GM by the same dynamic. The documentary "King Corn" provides some sad anecdotal evidence of this.
But to suggest that all farmers who use GM "support" it --- well...
Certainly, I don't any evidence that salmon farmers --- be they artisanal producers like Loch Duart or conventional industrial salmon farms --- are clamoring to get on the GM salmon bandwagon.
Yes..GM reduces fossil fuel use as opposed to what is said by the left wing propaganda machine. It's obvious to anyone who has ever driven a tractor. since I am liberal and a farmer the leftie antiGM propaganda is very embarrassing to listen to.