Buried in a prospectus inviting investors to buy shares in a fledgling biotech company is an arresting claim attributed to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation.
"Commercial aquaculture is the most rapidly growing segment of the agricultural industry, accounting for more than $60bn sales in 2003. While land-based agriculture is increasing between 2% to 3% per year, aquaculture has been growing at an average rate of approximately 9% per year since 1970."
And then the prospectus for the US company AquaBounty offers this observation to tantalise prospective investors: "The traditional fishery harvest from the ocean has stagnated since 1990."
So what is to be done to satisfy the world's seemingly insatiable appetite for fish? An appetite that will see the consumption of farmed fish outpace global beef consumption by nearly 10% within five years, according to the UN?
AquaBounty, whose shares are sold on London's Alternative Investment Market, thinks it has the answer. And if, as looks increasingly likely, the US government agrees, the implications for global food production will be enormous. Welcome to the new world heralded by the "GM salmon".
The company's dream of selling genetically modified salmon eggs that allow the fish to grow to maturity in half the normal time received a giant fillip last week when it announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was close to granting approval.
A positive FDA response would see salmon become the first GM-engineered animal marketed for human consumption. Dramatically speeding up the time it takes to harvest a mature salmon could stimulate a huge rise in production, making salmon plentiful and cheaper, GM enthusiasts say.
AquaBounty expects to receive the nod by the end of this year, meaning GM salmon could be on supermarket shelves within three years. The company's share price doubled on the strength of the announcement.
But the euphoria the company and its investors experienced following last week's announcement quickly evaporated amid a furious backlash from consumer groups.
"The furore over this fish puts paid once and for all to the myth that US consumers are content eating GM food," said Eve Mitchell, European food policy adviser at Food and Water Watch Europe, which opposes GM food. "Consumers are not, and in fact jammed up the White House telephone lines last week protesting any approval. Quite understandably the salmon industry is not happy either, as people will simply avoid all salmon rather than risk getting this stuff. Only those who stand to gain financially think this is a good idea."
Predictably, vested fishing interests have waded into the row. Local radio stations from Ireland to Canada carried interviews with angry fishermen who fear that initial reluctance to consume GM salmon will be overcome by simple economics. "Genetically modified food is just a bad deal," a commercial fisherman in Charleston, South Carolina, told his local station. "This will attack our marketplace. It'll come on the market so cheap that people will buy it, because we're all on a budget."
Ronald Stotish, AquaBounty's chief executive officer, is keen to play down these particular fears. His company is more interested in selling its technology to the burgeoning markets of Chile, China and Asia rather than competing with Atlantic fishermen. "The global salmon market is very, very large and the opportunity is in areas that cannot raise salmon," Stotish told the Observer. "We don't believe it need threaten any national markets, particularly for the high-value premium markets. We are hopeful that people don't regard us as an economic threat, but simply look to us as a technology that maybe can become part of the future."
If Stotish, a biochemist by training and an urbane advocate for his cause, succeeds, other companies are waiting in the wings to exploit similar GM technologies. AquaBounty itself is looking at GM trout, according to its prospectus, and has conducted trials on catfish. Up to six other species of fish – including tilapia and cod – are viewed by biotech companies as ripe for genetic modification, according to experts.
Not that Stotish enjoys being the vanguard of a GM food revolution. "It would be far easier to be the third or fourth or fifth [company to bring a GM animal to market]. If you are the first, you attract all of the attention and the burden of attention falls to you. It's a difficult position for a small firm like us."
AquaBounty is also battling dire warnings that its chief product threatens the natural food chain. The company's genetic technology ensures that more than 98% of its salmon cannot reproduce, Stotish says. In addition, the eggs it produces (which are all female thus ensuring the GM fish cannot reproduce among themselves) will be sold only to strictly monitored growers operating fish farms under licence from the FDA.
"This biological and physical containment almost certainly guarantees no interaction with wild salmon," Stotish pledged, pointing out that about 95% of the world's salmon is already produced in farms.
But Helen Wallace, of the anti-GM group GeneWatch, said she had serious concerns. "AquaBounty admit that they expect more than 1% of their fish to be able to reproduce," Wallace said. "If, as they intend, they end up producing large numbers of eggs, that's a large risk." Escaped GM salmon could "outcompete" its wild counterpart by reproducing earlier and threatening its food supply. Some researchers have suggested that even a small number of escaped GM salmon could cause extinction of wild populations in as little as 40 generations.
With potentially weak constitutions, the new salmon might then struggle to adapt to life outside captivity. Food and Water Watch goes as far as to suggest the GM salmon "may only last long enough in the wild to prevent natural populations from reproducing, leading to a total extinction of salmon in open waters".
Escapes are not uncommon. In March, nearly 100,000 farmed Atlantic salmon escaped into the wild from just one hole in a net at a UK fish farm.
Such concerns take place against the backdrop of a much wider battle between pro-GM groups and an increasingly vocal organic movement. GM crop production is promoted aggressively on the grounds that it can help eliminate global hunger and bring down food prices. Opponents claim the promised GM revolution that saw crops made resistant to potent herbicides – something that could dramatically reduce farmers' spraying time – has resulted in the rise of superweeds across vast tracts of US farmland.
Experts said they had been expecting the battle over GM food to move to fish for some time because they are easier to modify. Stotish said his company was focused purely on aquaculture. But GM pork already looks a real possibility. The Enviropig, a trademarked pig that has been genetically modified to excrete less polluting phosphorous in its faeces, has been developed by researchers in Canada. Genetically modified chickens capable of laying eggs containing proteins needed to make cancer-fighting drugs have been created by Scottish scientists.
A goat that produces a spider's web protein – paving the way for silk to be farmed – is under development. GM goats have also been raised to produce human breast milk and to deliver a special protein for people whose blood cannot flow smoothly. And then there is the GloFish, a genetically modified fluorescent zebrafish that, according to its sales blurb, would grace any aquarium and comes in three "striking colours" – starfire red, electric green and sunburst orange.
But amid the rush to spread GM's reach and scope, at least one government has recently had second thoughts. Muhyiddin Yassin, Malaysia's deputy prime minister, last week announced his government would not be releasing genetically modified male Aedes mosquitoes capable of sterilising female mosquitoes. "We must consider several aspects of the proposed release, including its impact on the environment," Yassin said. "In addition, the release of the mosquitoes must be endorsed by several international organisations."
For GM opponents, the U-turn was a cause for celebration, a sign that politicians still accept that the technology carries massive risks. But the ultimate victory in the argument about genetically modified food comes down to the invisible hand of the market. Both sides agree it is significant that none of the big GM technology companies such as Monsanto is attempting to create GM meat or fish, preferring to focus on more lucrative GM crop production.
"The process of genetically modifying animals has been a commercial failure," Wallace said. "Too many scientists and small biotech companies have engineered animals just because they can, without thinking through the technical, economic, marketing, animal welfare, environmental or social issues."
Yet Stotish senses opportunity for his fledgling industry. "Once the [GM] technology was adapted for plant systems, the size of that opportunity dwarfed the efforts on the animal side. We've lagged behind." If the FDA gives the green light to GM salmon, expect a frantic game of catch-up.
THE RISE OF GM
1980 First biotechnology patent granted: US researchers awarded a patent that allows them to make human insulin from genetically modified bacteria.
1982 US government approves tests to evaluate how genetically engineered bacteria can control frost damage in potatoes and strawberries.
1986 The US Environment Protection Authority approves the first GM crop - a virus-resistant tobacco plant.
1990 The first successful field trial of GM herbicide-tolerant cotton is conducted in the USA. In the same year the first GM dairy cow is created.
1994 The first genetically engineered food product, the Flavr Savr tomato, receives US Food and Drug Administration approval.
2002 Researchers sequence the DNA of rice, the first crop plant to have its genome decoded.
2003 UK approves a GM herbicide-resistant corn used for cattle feed.
2005 Cow genome sequence published.
2006 GM rice approved for human consumption in the US.
2007 Scottish researchers genetically modify chickens to lay eggs capable of producing drugs that fight cancer.
Comments in chronological order (Total 157 comments)
26 September 2010 12:40AM
So what do we do, just continually fish the sea until its all gone?
26 September 2010 12:43AM
Maybe just grow one big fish and everyone has a slice. Then the rest of the fish can just be left alone. Or something.
26 September 2010 12:49AM
mmm loaves too.
26 September 2010 1:04AM
So, I read through the article and there was fear and trembling, enough "what-ifs" to jump start Ruud Gullet - and complete avoidance of the simple fact that no scientific test have been produced to demonstrate a negative result from consuming this salmon.
All the fish does is grow year-round instead of half the year. That's it.
Save the panic for pols and pundits who wish to steal your benefits.
Even though folks on your side of the pond have beaucoup famous foodies prattling around the TV screen, I've never heard of one who could tell the difference between similar slices of this GM salmon prepared side by side with a comparable cut of their preferred stuff.
My family eats organic and natural and free-range whenever we can afford it. And when this critter is released to production to fish farms using the sort of feed and methods we are confident are already producing safe fish - we will eat these as well. Salmon protein that can't be distinguished from any other - except by price - is good enough.
26 September 2010 1:19AM
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26 September 2010 1:25AM
Eideard
Hard to conduct any quality meta-analysis on the long term effects of this GM fish when it's not even available outisde a lab environment though.
Taste tests conducted by the GM fish company , bound to be rigorous.
26 September 2010 1:28AM
"almost certainly guarantees" = we don't really know
26 September 2010 1:32AM
Isn’t the human race genetically modified?
We are a super species over populating the planet to destruction... if creating frankenfish is an efficient way to gorge our appetites the let’s do it! We’ve raped and pillaged the planet for the past 100 years, let’s do it more efficiently.
Who cares?
The oil companies don’t care about marine life... or the ozone... or global warming...or the smoke coming out of YOUR car.
US approval... what does that mean? Does that mean it’s sanctioned as if by GOD like nuclear weapons escalation – the cold war that was a wonderful four decades of US approval.
One man tried to stop it, John Fitzgerald Kennedy and he was murdered for his objections... of course this was all done with US approval.
26 September 2010 2:48AM
It doesn't say much for the general intelligence of people. They eat processed foods everyday that contain all kinds of poisonous chemicals, but they think they're being clever by making a stink about genetically modified foods. Let them eat cake!
26 September 2010 2:49AM
Eideard above says 'Salmon protein that can't be distinguished from any other - except by price - is good enough.'
Good enough for what? You and your family? Maybe, but not for other people and the wider world. For one: farmed salmon has far lower omega 3 fats than wild caught - this directly impacts our health.
Secondly, we simply do not know what will happen when these alien species escape and breed (1% of the eggs will be fertile), but it is going to disrupt the existing salmon population in ways we cannot predict, and also cannot undo.
And if those two reasons are not enough to avoid this technology consider that eating animal protein vastly increases one's susceptibility to developing cancers. Go vegan. You'll miss your meats for a while but your tastes will move on.
26 September 2010 3:10AM
Genetic modification is still very much in it's infancy and results are extremely unpredictable. They are are not replicable with any degree of accuracy.
At present scientists determine which chain of nucleotides cause a desired effect, they replicate that chain and then piledrive it into a nucleus they want to change. There is NO precise positioning of this chain, today's technology is not up to it yet.
A suitable analogy would be determining that turbocharger made a car go faster and replicating it. However because there wasn't the technology to precisely position the turbocharger it was punched thro the hood/bonnet with a piledriver and hoped it gave the desired effect.
hmmm...
It's not only a turbogarger that makes a car go faster but a number of different components and they are not always next to each other.
Would you really make a turbocharger by coercing the bits together or waiting til you at least had the skill to bolt two bits together?
Think that there is the chance that a turbocharger will work when randomly placed?
A car is a lot simpler than the DNA that gives life.
A car cannot self-replicate - there is a reason the GM firms don't want their products to self-replicate.
Are you telling me bits don't fly off when the nucleotide gets piledriven into the nucleus?
Cars don't get eaten and don't go into the food chain.
If there is a screw-up it's going to be very hard to remove all the rogues. It's a Pandora's Box.
This analogy is extremely crude but so are the techniques used in GM companies. In the future, a long time in the future, it will be possible to determine all the parts of the nucleotide that cause a particular effect. Science will be able to manufacture (costs and time permitting) accurate nucleotide chains. It will also be able to position these chains without resorting to piledriving.
By all means experiment in the lab, but today's science is way too crude and simplistic to have it introduced into an ecosystem.
Bring on the PR trolls
26 September 2010 3:13AM
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26 September 2010 3:18AM
Who are these people and what the hell is their agenda? We are being treated like laboratory rats. Thank God I don't have kids!
Eideard
You remind me of a character out of a John Wyndham science fiction novel. Creepy!
26 September 2010 3:18AM
The main objection I have is the likelyhood that eventually some of these fish will find their way into the wild. If this goes ahead, I would put the likelyhood as a near certainty.
26 September 2010 3:21AM
In a list that ranks those issues about which I feel I should worry, I would place concern about the health threat posed by eating these fish somewhere between 'is floral-pattern toilet paper too gay?' and 'is it OK to wear white socks with these shoes?'.
Unless you're a vegetarian, and disapprove of the consumption of any sentient creature, getting all bent out of shape at yet another in an endless and continuing meddling in animal and plant genomes, that began 10 thousand years ago with the cultivation wheat, is useless. What would really be useful is if we could learn to grow meat in factories and thus stop stripping the land and seas of all life.
Come 2050 and a estimated total population of 9 billion - a couple billion more of whom will be consuming protein like present-day residents of affluent nations - there will be no fish in the oceans, and no trees left on land that will have been clear cut for grazing and pasture.
The human species is like a plague of omnivorous locusts that can go anywhere and never stops increasing in numbers.
26 September 2010 4:08AM
Another rotten decision by the Obama Administration that betrays the very people who worked to get them elected - amazing.
26 September 2010 4:10AM
This move and the endless march of GM foods to come is likely very necessary in light of the burgeoning population on this world. But, at least with falling fertility rates, population will eventually stabilize.
26 September 2010 5:21AM
It has become clear over the last 10 years that the US as a country is now only solely motivated by a culture of profit and absolutely nothing else.
In these interviews, Jeffrey Smith, author of the bestseller Seeds of Deception, and Genetic Roulette, discusses the latest GMO research findings coming out of Russia, which adds fuel to previous concerns about long-term sterility and other highly bizarre physiological side effects.
http://vimeo.com/6575475
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/05/22/jeffrey-smith-interview-april-24.aspx
Another thing, will the earths population really grow from 6 to 9 billion???? Scare tactics more like.....
There is a growing consensus among demographers over a new forecast: that women in nations with 80 percent of the world's population will begin to limit their families to two children or fewer.
China nd Russia have declining populations. For years, most parts of Europe and Japan have seen a declining birthrate. Now, demographers see this trend taking hold in some 74 "intermediate-fertility countries" where women now have about three children on average - not the five-to-six children common in many African nations.
Intermediate-fertility countries include India, Brazil, the Philippines, Syria, Israel, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Egypt.
Where are these "extra 3 billion" people going to be exactly?
26 September 2010 5:32AM
Yet again men in suits put their insatiable greed before the safety of the individual or the planet. I would suggest that we contain the directors, their families and shareholders of this company in a tightly guarded compound for two decades on a diet of GM salmon only, before making it available, or not !!, to the general public.
26 September 2010 7:25AM
As stated before this GM salmon has less omega 3 than natural salmon. Also you don't have to be a foodie to tell the difference between wild salmon and farmed salmon.
Mind you after watching Jamie's American Food revolution any nation feeding pizza to their kids for breakfast cannot be trusted to produce decent food.
26 September 2010 7:29AM
Have some of us forgotten that there are HUNGRY people out there (and I don't mean they have a sharp appetite for dinner) and they are likely to get hungrier if climate change proves to be a devastating truth. Making more food is not the total answer to their problems but it's a welcome initiative. Imagine your belly being distended by protein deficiency rather than cake (can you, Marie Anntoinette?) and if it were, you'd gobble down a bit of GM salmon, wouldn't you?
There are parts of the world, big parts, where you could spread 3 inches of best organic manure and they still wouldn't grow anything and, yep, profit is a factor involved in GM (as it is in EVERYTHING we do) but not the only one.
Consider the EVIDENCE, stop using hyperbole to fuel poor arguements, stop running scared of science, consider that the profit motive isn't always bad and imagine what it's like to be HUNGRY.
Forgive me, may I give you an anecdote? In Ethiopia I tried to eat some meat from my plate in an open air hotel restaurant. I chewed and chewed and gave up. I discretely put it on the side of my plate. Somehow an old man got past the hotel guard and begged these leavings. In aramaic my friend explained that it had been chewed. The old man said he didn't care and swallowed it just before the guard discovered him and beat him with a stick. A moment that changed what I knew to be true into something I knew to be real.
26 September 2010 7:31AM
Another example of financial gain and illusions of forward thinking being put before the well being and sustainability of life. Another way to oppress and bend nature to 'our' will.
This represents a movement which will open up the Pandora's Box of GM filth.
26 September 2010 7:50AM
Assuming the GM modified salmon WILL escape and start to modify natural salmon, I want to know what twisted God-given right can some American scientists possibly think they have to come and f*&k with the fish I eat on the other side of the world?
26 September 2010 7:51AM
From this perspective I can see what may be around an all too near future corner: "Soylent Green is people!". Google the quote if you are unfamiliar with the perhaps prophetic movie and book.
Apparently opposing thumbs, the ability to use tools, and the capacity to create and use an alphabet didn't also come with foresight, so not quite a total package deal. Overfishing, polluting of the oceans (over 70% of the Earth's surface) and deforesting the planet at a rampant pace, we are currently sprinting down a dead end. But, on the bright side, the rich are getting richer!
Considering that the foxes are in charge of the hen houses in that most of the regulatory officials seem to be former industry personnel (or possibly guaranteed future highly paid employees, similar to those in charge of the SEC in the U.S. while having very close Wall Street ties or history) and are supposedly looking out for the safety of the food supply, is it any wonder that actual safety may take a back seat to profits for the corporations? And our somewhat corrupted governments turn a blind eye towards the shenanigans that help foot the bill for their own predilections?
I suspect that GM foods may turn out to be similar to the tinkering done in the past with purposeful or accidental introduction of non-native species to various countries around the world and causing immense ecological problems. The little time spent testing for problems under realistic (read: impossible to fully predict) conditions or nay saying about potential problems in no way compares to what disasters may follow on what could be a more permanent basis. African Honeybees, rabbits, cane toads, foxes, Burmese pythons, Asian carp, salt cedar, kudzu..... the list of natural flora and fauna sources of severe introduction repercussions far exceeds the room left here. Should we introduce more non-natural unknowns into the mix?
26 September 2010 8:16AM
"We’ve raped and pillaged the planet for the past 100 years, let’s do it more efficiently. "
More like the industrial nations (Western civilisation) has grabed all resources and is still at it. Why include those "underdeveloped" nations who are able to live in a balance with nature?
26 September 2010 8:39AM
@jeanyvesvdv
"Yet again men in suits put their insatiable greed before the safety of the individual or the planet. I would suggest that we contain the directors, their families and shareholders of this company in a tightly guarded compound for two decades on a diet of GM salmon only, before making it available, or not !!, to the general public."
Here. here! - The voice of sanity. Thank you!
@Vapid
"Who are these people and what the hell is their agenda? We are being treated like laboratory rats. Thank God I don't have kids!"
Me neither, but for those who do and really care about the future of our small planet for their offspring ...
I'm pretty sure our brave sea-guardians at Sea Shepherd have something to say about this :~
http://www.seashepherd.org/
Captain Paul Watson is Vegan as are most of his crew, but don't let that put off any of you who might be omnivores please? Without Sea Shepherd there will be nothing much left of wildlife in the sea pretty soon. Politicians will always be controlled by lobbyists for bankers and industry who only care about profit for themselves and a tiny minority.
26 September 2010 8:40AM
Thanks Guadian for keeping this issue on the front page. I'd rather see it there than on anyone's dinner plate for the foreseeable future.
I'm willing to bet there are already test groups of consumers someplace,
investors talking up the promising look of shareholdings,
fish farms in wild impoverished beautiful places where experiments have begun without the glare of reportage.
26 September 2010 8:42AM
sorry, a new variant...shoulld've spelt Guardian
26 September 2010 8:42AM
Mmm, Soylent Pink.
What could possibly go wrong?
26 September 2010 8:43AM
GM typos this morning
26 September 2010 8:45AM
The safety of GM food for human consumption is a total non-issue as far as I'm concerned. Look at what people eat already.
It's all about the environmental effects of GM organisms. The GM brainiacs seem to be wilfully ignorant, staggeringly so, of this sister discipline...and the last GM entrepreneur will cheerfully sell you a cloned hangman to finish off the second last.
Externalising costs is as crucial a part of the logic of capitalist institutions as rationalising production and capturing market share. Asking questions about the downstream effects of products is like asking any other sort of damn fool question: anyone is free to bring external issues to bear on their activities within the capitalist market, but they'll be swept away by competitors that fudge research, bribe politicians, arrange for the elimination of annoying union leaders, know a man who can make those barrels of dioxin go away, don't worry about environmental contamination....
If the environmental issues around GM lifeforms were given half the attention they merit, the first GM product would still be in the testing stage in a high security greenhouse somewhere.
26 September 2010 8:46AM
And of course the genius of talking up technological fixes to world hunger is that they crowd economic and political issues right out of the frame -- even though there's no technological fix, short of a virus that only attacks rich people, that will overcome or circumvent vested economic and political interests.
26 September 2010 9:03AM
I am fortunate to be able to eat on a regular basis wild north atlantic salmon.
Believe me - it is like a different species compared to farmed salmon,
less fatty, less pink, different (and better) flesh consistency and better flavoured.
What will happen when these GM salmon escape (as they inevitably will) and interbreed with wild salmon?
Or will interbreeding be impossible?
Is it possible that interbreeding will produce salmon that are not viable - and hence wipe out the wild salmon population?
26 September 2010 9:15AM
If you can't see the risks in GM Salmon - Salmon being right near the top of the food chain - damaging wild stocks, then there is no point reasoning with you.
We couldn't even keep the progeny of GM cows out of the food chain with all the supposed controls there are.
26 September 2010 9:32AM
Mmmm...let's see....
1. Probability of escape into environment at some point in the future = certainty;
2. Effects of escape into the environment = completely unpredictable;
The theory of emergence, which deals with some of the properties of so-called complex systems and which has been popularised by the idea that a butterfly flapping its wings in Mexico can cause a thunderstorm in Delhi, grew out of a theory that used to be called Chaos Theory, which dealt with the behaviour of complex systems and which used to be called..... Catastrophe Theory.
We are intelligent apes, but unfortunately not intelligent enough yet to have learned that a combination of arrogance and ignorance is often fatal. I wonder if we'll live long enough to learn that?
These people have no right to play with matches in my home.
26 September 2010 9:35AM
The Macondo well took months to cap and now the seabed floor is leaking oil because the damage has been so extensive. And what now with GM fish, or GM anything? What if it goes all horribly wrong, even after the experts at this particular well head say there's no need to worry?
26 September 2010 9:38AM
With a bit of luck, eating infertile salmon will render consumers infertile, then the poulation crisis will be controlled!
Until then - bring mine with chips and to hell with the ranting fundamentalist scare-mongerers.
26 September 2010 9:39AM
@coybb
Don’t confuse a reduced birth rate with a declining population. Populations in countries like China will continue to grow over the coming years (until 2030 it’s predicted) due to declines in infant mortality and improvements in health that increase longevity.
26 September 2010 9:43AM
@ iruka
'
I couldn't agree more. And I like your concept of this being a 'sister discipline'
The 'only the GM route can feed the world' myth has hijacked the debate.
Whereas the contamination of the environment by GM interference technologies is the
first principle upon which everything else hangs.
Mess up the fine balance of nature and we're all screwed.
As someone said on another thread all economists and politicians should take a basic course in an ecological science.
26 September 2010 9:45AM
The cynical promotion of "natural" foods has put a lot of money in the pockets of a few businesses (mostly big corporations) that want to continue milking the dominant superstition of our "faith without religion" age.
Food is either fit for human consumption or it's not. GM food is safe. End of story. Now go and find some other anti-science pseudo-threat to worry about.
26 September 2010 10:01AM
The solution for consumers is indeed to stop eating all salmon, though I did this a while back given the poor taste of farmed salmon and the difficulty/moral questions of eating wild salmon (given its scarcity). The same is true with much chicken and pork since the conditions in which it is produced in the UK has gone downhill. The taste has suffered and I now eat very little.
The sad thing is that this won't stop the impact that the new breed of salmon has on its wild counterpart and indeed other competing species.
Increasingly the consumer is being forced to become a small holder just to get hold of decent quality meat with taste, aside from scientific worries. A shame that this is now occuring in the seas.
26 September 2010 10:13AM
And just what are these salmon going to be fed? Currently it is estimated that between 3 and 5 kg of wild fish is needed to produce 1 kg of farmed salmon. Do we have to vacuum the oceans to support hte lifestyles of a few entrpreneurs?
26 September 2010 10:15AM
If these fish manage to reproduce in the wild , ever and thats a long time even for a fish in which only 1 in 100 reproduce, then as with other GM technology we have irreparably altered the environment in a profound and unforeseeable way.
How do you do tests to predict the result? You can't.
What is predictable is that some how in the next 100 years enough of the millions of eggs that will have been produced will enter into the natural fish cycle to create a change that can't be recalled. Companies will drop procedures to save money not clean the egg filters enough or whatever, govts will become lax and not enforce standards etc. Or companies will move to countries that simply don't have a policy on GE. Somehow it will happen.
The more people who watch this video the better:
http://www.blip.tv/file/2894936
26 September 2010 10:21AM
To grow (fast or slowly) a certain amount of protein is required. Currently, much aquaculture relies on ocean by-catch or soya. I still would like to know if the GM salmon requires a higher density diet to maximize it's growth and if so, what type and from where will it come? If oceans are to be continually plundered to provide feed, then this is unacceptable. Well? does anyone know?
26 September 2010 10:27AM
Check out 'Darwin's nightmare' - Big isn't necessarily sustainably better.
26 September 2010 10:28AM
@cjfield - way to miss the point, impressive.
@penseurarmorique - thanks for injecting some reason and describing the why aquaculture will not be able to feed more people in the future. Farmed fish is only sustainable when its not fed on other fish protein... unfortunately, most of our preferred fish are predators. Increasing the growth rate of the fish doen't exactly solve any problem (except bringing down production costs somewhat, of course, provided the price of the necessary whitefish stays very low... rather unlikely with those stock about to collapse).
The problem with GMOs is not foodsafety. It's the believe that we can somehow use them to (Cheaply! haha) circumvent the necessity ob developing highly resource efficient high-output farming systems in the near future. And that has to do with soil fertility management, equity issues in access to land, closing nutrient cycles in farming systems and a whole host of other things ....and then the stuff we actually want to grow, GMO or not.
26 September 2010 10:30AM
@Monkeybiz
yes, he's a commenter called DocDave and he'll be along any minute I expect, he wrote of a link to veterinary science and several family members currently earning their livings in this business.
26 September 2010 10:30AM
@cjfield
I don't think that the issue is that Genetically Engineered food is not safe to eat but rather the farming techniques that go along with it. Genetically engineered crops aren’t dangerous to eat but they are developed to be resistant to pesticides allowing farming techniques that make more intensive use of stronger pesticides. This is bad for the environment and biodiversity.
I remember when it was thought salmon farming was going to save wild salmon populations. Instead the concentrations of waste, undigested food, antibiotics and pesticides associated with salmon farms make dead zones and algae blooms common in Scottish lochs, whilst wild salmon face extinction. There are strict regulations regarding treatment of agricultural and human waste but all fish-farm waste goes untreated straight into the loch or sea. As fish farming has grown the numbers of wild salmon have fallen. The concentrations of salmon in fish farms encourage concentrations of disease and sea lice which the wild salmon sharing the nearby environment are much more vulnerable to than their medicated/vaccinated cousins. We are, of course, happy to buy the cheap salmon that farming provides and the introduction of super-salmon can only provide cheaper salmon and increase the demand for fish farmed Salmon. This is bad news for wild salmon and the environment.
26 September 2010 10:47AM
Why is it that all the pro GM food posters here focus on the food-safety aspect of GM salmon? (e.g. cjfield, above). The article doesn't mention health once and very few comments have brought forward health concerns as an argument.
As has been stated many times above, the real concern most have is that GM salmon will escape into the wild and end up wrecking ecosystems and the wild salmon population. Could it be that they just don't have an argument to counter that?
For a quick refresher in genetics for those that need it we are talking about the potential introduction of a gene for increased growth into the wild salmon gene pool. I've not seen any description of the GM salmon as a new species (which per definition of species would entail that it couldn't reproduce with wild salmon), only that most of the eggs will produce infertile salmon. Infertility and increased growth are not linked genetically in the GM salmon. If the increased growth gene confers a competitive advantage to salmon carrying it, even in the short term (before the salmon population eats it's way to starvation) then once in the gene pool it will spread. It will not be possible to eradicate it in future. So what we're looking at is in effect a proposal to modify the wild salmon gene pool. Suddenly it doesn't look like such a good idea after all.
On another note, GM technology in particular takes the control over food production away from farmers in the lands where there are food shortages. While it's entirely possible to create crops that grow better in various local environments the GM companies don't exactly give them away for free. It's a technological fix that leaves farmers dependent on those who have control over the technology. It's a well defined business model. There's a good parallel with e.g. anti HIV drugs. Just because a problem has a technical solution it doesn't mean that solution will be made readily available to everyone that needs it.
The food markets in many lands have already been warped by the need to produce food for Western tables in return for foreign currency. The Ethiopian in the anecdote somewhere above (who took a beating for begging a scrap of tough pre-chewed meat) may have spent his life producing coffee for export. Meanwhile in the West we throw out more food than we eat, and we eat a lot. Surely it's not just me that sees something wrong with this picture?
I once heard it argued that the real problem with GM food wasn't "what if it all went horribly wrong and we ended up destroying our ecosystems" but "what if it all went horribly right...."
26 September 2010 10:58AM
Melmo wrote:
Consider the EVIDENCE, stop using hyperbole to fuel poor arguements, stop running scared of science, consider that the profit motive isn't always bad and imagine what it's like to be HUNGRY.
Quite so. I get so disappointed by the ease with posters on a thread like this slip into the hyperbole of all black or all white. A viable solution/strategy is out there somewhere in the grey zone.
Yes, there are those who make money out of it. Yes, some of them are very cynical. Yes, there are risks, unquantifiable and even unidentifiable.
But there IS widespread hunger. There WILL BE more hungry people. Current methods ARE NOT providing enough food...
So clearly something has to change and only science can pin down that something. So, yes, stop running scared of science.
Sadly, no one trusts the FDA anymore. This one needs the equivalent of the IPCC.
No strategy can be entirely risk free. We need to get that into our heads. At some point, someone is going to have to decide what represents a reasonable risk. I'd sooner that recommendation come from independent scientists rather than from a private company; and I'd like to be convinced that the politicians will have the balls to face up to it.
But I'm not holding my breath.