Kaitlin Guitard takes the helm of Young Salmon Farmers of BC

For her, the work is about more than communications. It is about succession, credibility, and making sure the next generation has a voice in shaping the future of food production in Canada.

By Samantha McLeod
SeaWestNews

Kaitlin Guitard, Fish Health and Food Safety Laboratory Manager at Mowi Canada West, is one of the young voices helping shape the future of salmon farming in British Columbia.

She came to ocean farming with a deep respect for science, and a farmer’s understanding that feeding a country is meaningful work that keeps families, communities, and economies alive.

“Terrestrial farming really showed me that Canada has this wonderful opportunity to have its own food sovereignty and kind of beat food scarcity that we see in a lot of countries because of our natural resources,” Guitard says. “So, I saw an opportunity for a really important dedicated career in providing food to Canadians.”

That purpose followed her west when she first moved to British Columbia, ready, as she says, “to spread my wings.” But finding her footing in agriculture was harder than she expected. It was aquaculture, and eventually Mowi Canada West, that gave her the chance to stay in B.C. and build a life in food production.

“I did not realise how much of a career I had walked into,” she says.

What she had walked into was a sector still young compared with terrestrial farming in Canada, a sector filled with innovation, technology, research, regulation, responsibility, and the everyday care of animals raised in one of the most challenging environments on earth. It suited her curiosity and her need for challenges and learning.

Then came the Discovery Islands closure, one of the most contentious chapters in B.C. salmon farming.

In December 2020, the federal government announced a plan to phase out salmon farming licences in the Discovery Islands, including a ban on adding new fish and a requirement that farms be empty by June 30, 2022. The decision sent uncertainty through companies, workers, coastal communities, and young people trying to decide whether there was a future for them in the sector.

The farm she worked on closed, and people left the province. Young employees, especially, began looking elsewhere.

For Guitard, the disruption became a turning point. An opening came up for Fish Health and Food Safety Laboratory Manager at Mowi Canada West, and she applied.

“It was a pivoting moment to take that leap from small farmer to being in the lab,” she says. “It was a scary choice, but it was the right choice.”

In that role, Guitard works with veterinarians and fish health technicians “from egg to plate,” and helps ensure that salmon from processing plants is safe to eat. She has learned the language and discipline of food safety, including hygienic design, HACCP, and the layers of local, provincial, and federal oversight that govern the sector.

“I see firsthand, and I’m a part of firsthand, working with multi layers of regulation to make sure that our food is safe,” she says.

That combination of agriculture, science, and public trust now shapes her newest role as Chair of Young Salmon Farmers of BC, a group founded in 2020 to create positive dialogue about salmon farming and help communities understand the people and work behind B.C. farm raised salmon.

Guitard, who was named BCSFA Young Professional of the Year in 2024, steps into the chair’s role after serving two years as vice chair alongside former chair Michelle Franze.

“I’m really excited to serve and honoured to serve as chair for the Young Salmon Farmers of BC,” Guitard says. “I have very big dreams for this group, and together with this team, we’re going to do great things for this sector in Canada.”

For her, the work is about more than communications. It is about succession, credibility, and making sure the next generation has a voice in shaping the future of food production in Canada.

Young Salmon Farmers of BC brings together people from across the value chain, including farm and hatchery workers, veterinarians, water quality technicians, biologists, communicators, environmental specialists, logistics workers, technology experts, and managers. Guitard describes the team as a diverse group of people who can speak from direct experience, because they are not watching the sector from a distance. They are inside it, caring for fish, building systems, solving problems, and answering questions.

“We just try to, in plain language, educate people,” she says. “It’s very important to have the next wave have their voice in the industry, not only just to educate, but to help frame what the future is going to look like for aquaculture, not just in British Columbia, but in Canada.”

That future is already reaching far beyond B.C. Guitard says young salmon farmers on the East Coast have looked to the B.C. model while building their own group, and there is growing work internationally through the International Salmon Farmers Association’s next generation efforts.

Michelle Franze, she says, played a major role in making sure British Columbia had a place at those tables.

“Oh my gosh, Michelle, we could talk about her forever!” Guitard says.

“Michelle spent six years building up this group, and the group looks nothing like it did when we started in 2020,” Guitard says. “She deserves so much respect for sticking it out and keeping this group together and excited about the next chapter. She’s really taken us not just in British Columbia, but across Canada and globally. And I just want to keep the momentum that she’s built going.”

That momentum, for Guitard, means government outreach, community involvement, conferences, professional development, and a stronger bridge between aquaculture and agriculture. She wants young salmon farmers to be seen as farmers at sea, connected to the same questions that face farmers on land: how to feed people, how to steward resources, how to earn public trust, and how to make sure the next generation can keep doing the work.

She is especially interested in education. Through relationships with groups such as BC Agriculture in the Classroom and the BC Agriculture Council, Guitard sees a chance to reintroduce young people, teachers, government, and the public to salmon farming in ways that are human, practical, and memorable.

“It’s bringing young farmers from the workforce and putting them in front of people and saying, ask them some questions,” she says. “We’ll share our story about what we do in our field.”

She wants the information to be bite sized, relevant, and interactive. Videos, classroom visits, hands on demonstrations, and conversations can all help people understand the deep connection between agriculture and aquaculture. She has even imagined bringing salmon, cutting it open, and showing the organs and health indicators that fish health teams look for during screening.

“I see light bulbs going off when I relate it to animals,” she says.

Guitard wishes more people would understand that salmon farming is not careless work nor is it easy work.

“I don’t think people understand how much work goes into making a healthy salmon that is safe for people to eat,” she says. “I really would love the public to know the amount of care and due diligence that is taken into these salmon, welfare wise, fish health wise, environmentally.”

There is also the ocean itself, powerful and alive, a natural resource that demands humility from anyone trying to grow food within it.

To raise salmon, she says, is to work with that ocean, to adapt, to mitigate risk, to use technology, and to keep learning and farming good food.

Images courtesy of Young Salmon Farmers BC.
Main image: Kaitlin Guitard