Land-based fish farmers alarmed over net-pen aquaculture ban
“A full stop removal of net pen salmon farms in British Columbia would be disastrous for the whole industry because the resources that exist to support the net-pen salmon farms are also important for land-based salmon farmers,” – Cody Smith, GM of Kuterra.
By Fabian Dawson
SeaWestNews
Kuterra, a pioneering land-based fish farmer in British Columbia, is warning the Federal Government that its plan to ban net-pen salmon farms in the province after 2029 will be detrimental to the nascent closed-containment aquaculture sector in the region.
“A full stop removal of the net pen salmon farms in British Columbia would be disastrous for the whole industry because the resources that exist to support the net-pen salmon farms are also important for land-based salmon farmers,” said Cody Smith, General Manager of Kuterra, which operates in collaboration with the Namgis First Nation.
“And so, if those resources left the province, it would be a much less attractive region to invest a significant amount of money and build a large-scale land-based salmon farm here,” Smith told SeaWestNews.
“For land-based aquaculture to have success in British Columbia, there needs to be a successful period where the land-based farms operate in parallel with the open-net pen systems,” he said.
The Liberal Government, disregarding advice from its own scientists—who have determined that the ocean-based farms pose minimal risk to wild stocks—announced the controversial ban on open-net salmon farming last June.
Last week it unveiled a draft transition plan for the sector, which will impact thousands of aquaculture workers in indigenous and non-indigenous coastal communities.
The salmon farming sector in BC has said the timeline for transition to closed containment has been made in the absence of any scientific assessment of the environmental impacts of this category of technology.
Smith, a 15-year veteran of the aquaculture industry, said land-based fish farmers ride in the slipstream of their net-pen counterparts.
“I think it is important that the government and the general public understand that for the transition plan to be feasible, it does require these sectors in the aquaculture industry working in parallel, not one versus the other,” he said.
Given the interdependencies between the sectors, Smith suggested the government look at a longer transition period so that salmon farmers and their First Nation partners
can forge a path that supports economic growth, environmental sustainability, and the long-term viability of the aquaculture industry in the region.
The Namgis First Nation, which is vociferously opposed to ocean-based salmon farming in BC, established Kuterra in 2013. After flailing for years despite millions in federal and philanthropic funding, Kuterra entered into an agreement with Whole Oceans which is now operating the land-based facility near Port McNeill on Vancouver Island.
Smith said Kuterra switched to raising Steelhead last year after its supply of Atlantic Salmon smolts was interrupted.
This has helped Kuterra become a more financially feasible operation, with the capacity to produce 300 metric tonnes of fish per year that is destined for the local market.
Smith urged both the Federal and Provincial governments to provide more support, regulatory certainty and financial incentives for the transition plan to be successful.
In BC, government decisions at the behest of activists, have already shut down 40% of salmon farms since 2020 wiping out jobs that are the lifeblood of rural, coastal and Indigenous communities.
Before the shutdowns the salmon farming sector was the largest agri-food export in BC.
The sector employed approximately 6,500 people, produced close to 500 million salmon meals per year, received inputs from over 1,000 individual suppliers and had an economic value of $2 Billion.
Currently in BC, all existing salmon farms are supported by the First Nations communities that they operate in.
A BC government-commissioned report projected that replacing BC’s current salmon farm production with recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS), also known as land-based or closed containment operations, would require a direct investment of between $1.8 billion to $2.2 billion.
The reports’ authors also estimated that it will be at least 10 years before a significant land-based salmon production sector is operating at a steady rate in BC.
It mirrors an earlier government report – The State of Salmon Aquaculture Technologies study released in February 2020 which warned RAS technology requires the use of large amounts of land, water, and power, and thus has a significant environmental footprint, in particular greenhouse gas emissions.
“An ill-conceived transition plan could end salmon farming in BC, leading to an annual provincial economic loss of $1.2 billion, a $447 million reduction in GDP, and more than 4,600 additional lost jobs,” states a letter from the BC Salmon Farmers Association to the Liberal caucus.
“The government’s decisions have already reduced confidence in Canada as an investment location. Global farming companies like MOWI, Grieg Seafood, and Cermaq are re-evaluating investment strategies, halting investment projects due to concerns over policy instability, and re-allocating capital and innovation funds to other farming jurisdictions,” the letter stated.
Robert Walker, president of Gold River Aquafarms Ltd said while he believes that the industry uptake of land-based systems is inevitable, there are many challenges to be addressed.
“The transition from net cage operations to controlled environment farms will take time, certainly, more than the five years allotted by the recent Ministerial decision, said Walker in an open letter addressed to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
“In the meantime, the uncertainty of how the transition is to take place will drive away much of the existing industry – staff will leave for work that is more stable; supporting industries will find other areas of focus,” he said.
“The collapse of the net cage sector will be harmful towards the nascent land-based sector because the supporting industry infrastructure will not be there.”
(File image of the Kuterra farm in the north of Vancouver Island, British Columbia)