Tucked in a sheltered bay at Hardwicke Island in the Discovery Island chain is a series of 10 enclosures that look like a bunch of small swimming pools stitched together.
The Hardwicke Island salmon farm is one of 55 owned by Norway’s Marine Harvest, the biggest fish farm operator in B.C.
The 10 pens, going to a depth of 20 metres, contain around 600,000 Atlantic salmon. It’s one of 70 salmon farms in B.C. operating at any given time that annually produce a landed value of $428 million, $114 million in processing and support roughly 5,000 jobs in B.C. But at what cost?
According to environmentalists and some First Nations, the farms pose a threat because they can transmit sea lice and viruses to wild salmon stocks. A moratorium on new north coast fish farms has consequently been in place for several years.
While the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) shares some of those concerns, it generally supports fish farming, because in terms of footprint, energy consumption, water use and feed conversion ratios, fish farming is the most efficient way to produce protein. Moreover, it takes pressure off wild fish stocks.
“In our view, aquaculture is very important because, first of all, it’s very efficient, it overall has low greenhouse gas emissions and low land use, low fresh water use and it provides livelihoods and food security,” said Bettina Saier, vice-president of oceans for WWF Canada.
One of the concerns over fish farming is feed conversion ratios. It used to take four kilograms of protein – usually in the form of feeder fish, like sardines – to produce one kilogram of salmon.
The industry now has that ratio down as low as 1.1 kilograms of feed to one kilogram of salmon, and only about 20% of the feed is now made from other fish, including fish waste. The rest is made up with other animal protein and canola oil.
Compared with beef, pork and chicken, fish farming has a small ecological footprint.
According to the WWF, cattle pastures make up 70% of global agricultural land but provide only 6% to 11% of the world’s food. The feed conversion ratio for beef is about seven kilograms for every kilogram of beef.
“The edible amount of meat on an Atlantic salmon is around 70%,” said Vincent Erenst, managing director for Marine Harvest Canada. “It’s a lot of meat for very little bone. If you take both the fact that you get a lot of fish for very little feed, and then you get a lot of meat out of the fish, it’s a very efficient way to grow protein.”
Recognizing the role fish farming can play in feeding the world without increasing pressure on wild fish stocks, the WWF developed the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC), which certifies fish farms that meet the highest ecological standards.
Only three salmon farms in B.C. have achieved ASC certification. The BC Salmon Farmers Association has set a goal of having all salmon farms in B.C. receiving that certification by 2020.
The certification will be important for getting the social licence to expand fish farming in B.C.
B.C. salmon farms produce only 2.5% of the world’s farmed salmon, and the industry sees huge growth potential here. B.C. salmon farms produce 75,000 tonnes of salmon per year, compared with 1.2 million tonnes in Norway and 800,000 tonnes in Chile.
Thirty per cent of the salmon farmed in B.C. is consumed in Canada. Of the 60% exported, most goes to the U.S. Very little goes to Asia, despite a huge and growing demand there.
“The market’s there – we just don’t have the supply,” said BC Salmon Farmers Association executive director Jeremy Dunn.
The salmon farming sector in B.C. has not grown over the past decade, due to the moratorium on new tenures and more stringent biomass density regulations. Production at many farms has shrunk.
Brown’s Bay Packing Co., an independent processor, is one of four in B.C. that specialize in processing farmed salmon for companies like Marine Harvest and Cermaq – another Norwegian fish farming company.
The plant currently employs a crew of about 35 workers at its facility near Campbell River. It used to employ up to 200.
“Ordinarily, we’ll work for about a year and a half, and then we’ll take about a six-month downtime,” said plant production manager Scott Williams. “We used to work 12 months a year, two shifts. One time, we had over 200 employees working here.”
Mechanization is partly responsible for today’s smaller workforce. But there are also fewer fish to process than there were 10 years ago. New biomass regulations designed to curb the potential for crowding that spreads disease have reduced the volume of fish that can be grown in each pen. Brown’s Bay once processed 35 million pounds of fish for one of its customers; it now processes 18 million to 20 million pounds for the same customer, Williams said.
Marine Harvest has had the same production levels for a decade, but its “vision is to grow around 40% over the next five years,” Erenst said.
The company is hoping to see tenures for two new fish farms approved soon.
There are 105 licensed fish farms in B.C., but only 64 to 75 that operate at any given time, with 35 to 45 being fallowed. But if the B.C. and federal governments are planning to allow fish farms to expand in B.C., the First Nations Wild Salmon Alliance wants to know to what extent.
It has asked the provincial government to disclose how many new tenures might be approved in the near future. But fish farm licensing is no longer a provincial jurisdiction – it’s now the responsibility of the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
Neither DFO nor the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture answered questions from Business in Vancouver about the number of new fish farm licences that are likely to be approved in B.C.
Dunn said eight new tenures are expected to be approved.
While some First Nations are opposed to fish farming, others support the industry. The ’bNamgis First Nation on northern Vancouver Island, for example, owns and operates B.C.’s first land-based closed-containment salmon farm, called Kuterra.
There are four land-based fish farms in B.C., but Kuterra is the only one producing salmon. Compared with ocean-based fish farms, Kuterra’s 470-tonne production capacity is small.
It’s also costly, because the capital costs, including energy, are higher than for open-net fish farms. But Kuterra spokeswoman Jo Mrozewski said customers are more than willing to pay that premium.
“We’ve proven that people are willing to pay a substantial premium for fish that they’re confident is sustainable Atlantic salmon.
