World Warns of Food Shortages as Canada Produces Less Farmed Salmon

As climate uncertainty, drought and water shortages tighten their grip on global food supplies, British Columbia must ask how its farmland and coastline can work together to fortify food sovereignty.

Commentary
By Samantha McLeod

If British Columbia is serious about food sovereignty, it must protect productive farmland while recognizing the food-producing potential of 27,000 kilometres of coastline. Its fields and waters are two assets, and a resilient food system needs both.

The warning signs are gathering. A United Nations assessment estimates 645 million people faced hunger in 2025, 7.8 per cent of the world’s population. In Britain, one of the driest growing seasons in decades has left wheat at barely half its normal height, forced early harvests and pushed nearly three-quarters of England into drought. More than 27 million people face water restrictions. Across continents, punishing heat, wildfires and shrinking rivers are tightening food production’s margins.

Yet the world is preparing to produce more food from water, not less. The OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook projects global fisheries and aquaculture production will rise 11 per cent by 2035. Aquaculture will drive that growth, reaching 121 million tonnes and accounting for 56 per cent of all fisheries and aquaculture production.

Canada is moving in the opposite direction. Since 2015, British Columbia’s farmed salmon production has fallen by more than 40 per cent as federal closures and restrictions reduced domestic supply. The fish did not disappear from Canadian tables. Foreign production filled the gap. In 2025, Canada imported more than $1 billion worth of salmon, about $71 million more than the year before.

That dependence sends Canadian food dollars abroad, lengthens supply chains and exposes consumers to international prices, transportation costs and disruptions beyond our control. The cost continues to balloon beyond the grocery aisle, weakening processing capacity, coastal employment and Canada’s ability to feed itself when drought, conflict or trade disputes fracture supply chains. Food sovereignty depends on keeping the knowledge, infrastructure and means of production close enough to answer a crisis. Why surrender domestic production of a food Canadians continue to buy?

Moving aquaculture onto land is often presented as the answer, but it is not a simple substitute for ocean farming. On land, the aquatic environment must be rebuilt inside buildings. Water must be pumped, filtered and oxygenated. Temperatures must be controlled and systems constantly monitored, all at considerable energy cost. Land-based production may have a place, but the ocean’s natural processes cannot be replicated without consequence or cost.

Protecting farmland must remain a provincial priority, and farmers remain the backbone of our food system. But fields and oceans are partners, not competitors. British Columbia’s coast has sustained Indigenous communities for thousands of years and continues to support coastal economies. Responsible marine food production and environmental protection must advance together.

Ottawa plans to ban open-net pen salmon aquaculture in B.C. coastal waters by 2029, just as the rest of the world searches for high-quality sites to expand aquatic food production. British Columbia already possesses what many countries lack, an extraordinary coastline and an established marine farming sector.

At a time when the world is warning about fragile food supplies and expanding aquaculture, deliberately producing less at home while importing more is a strange definition of food security.

Main photo courtesy of Excel Career College, which offers a 17-week AI in Aquaculture course for fish farmers and students in British Columbia.