Filling food baskets in the new world economy

Klemtu, B.C., is found on Swindle Island, alongside the north-central Pacific coast of Canada, and this town is residence of a First Nation called the Kitasoo/XaiXais, and they have recently authorized a change of location for two of their fish farm sites situated nearby.

Their partner in fish farming Marine Harvest Canada moved circular net-pens into position at Kid Bay and Sheep Pass farm sites to receive a delivery of a boat-load of Atlantic salmon smolts in late January 2008.

These sites have started to grow groups of fish to be harvested in processing plant facilities of Kitasoo Seafood Ltd., the company belonging to the Kitasoo/XaiXais First Nation.

These locations will be supervised by MHC area manager Terry Smith who has a 20 year history of growing fish including a recent two year stint in Norway.

Terry worked for one of the first industrial-scale net-pen fish farms on the west coast of Canada in the 1980s. Royal Pacific Fish Farms charted new territory in the world of net-pen fish farming by pioneering new economies of scale for growing fish at a profit.

Royal Pacific may have failed on the management side, Terry surmises, but they brought the operational standards up by investing millions in net-pen and float and anchor technology and research.

It was obvious by this time (early 1990s) that aquaculture and fish growing industry had to work within the regulatory environment for marketing food in the modern Canadian and world economy.

The standard for food commodities is regulated by the Codex Alimentarius Commission, which was,  "created in 1963 by FAO and WHO to develop food standards, guidelines and related texts such as codes of practice under the Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards Programme."

The food standards website continued, "The main purposes of this Programme are protecting health of the consumers and ensuring fair trade practices in the food trade, and promoting coordination of all food standards work undertaken by international governmental and non-governmental organizations."

The Marine Harvest Canada operation comprises about 50 percent of the production of farmed fish on the Pacific coast of Canada. This makes MHC a good company to observe.

In reality Marine Harvest Canada made a number of acquisitions to become this big in Canada, the last one occurring in 2007, when Panfish Canada was sold to Marine Harvest Canada. This means Marine Harvest Canada runs about 40 fish farm sites on Canada’s Pacific coast.

The net-pens for these farm sites are situated on the Inside Passage on the top half of Vancouver Island, by and large; in addition Marine Harvest Canada owns a group of sites operating within the Kitasoo/Xaixais First Nation traditional territory.

Those sites give jobs 350 kilometres north of Port Hardy to Kitasoo/Xaixais members, and crops of fish are processed in a plant owned and operated by the folks in Klemtu, B.C..

Critics of fish farming in Canada come from a variety of sources and state a variety of offenses by the industry and hardly any of the opposition arguments can be proven, nor can the industry state with a lot of authority that the practices of net-pen fish farming are not deleterious to the ecology surrounding the sites.

The Broughton Inlet at the northeast tip of Vancouver Island is a treasure of culture and history, also, a present-day showcase of the Namgis Nation's survival as a people. People in the area have been party to a fight with fish farming since the beginning.

With each industrial advance the Namgis and people like the recently deceased Pat Alfred ramped up their opposition shown to the fish farmers. Today it is the Broughton Inlet where much focus has been placed especially regarding the issue of sea lice. (see video 'slide #X)

While everybody has concerns about the growing conditions for animals that fill the food baskets of the world, those who monitor the growth of salmon in net-pens on the west coast are called fish technicians.

These people receive direct training in the employment on farm sites, some generic and some specific training for the jobs on the sites. The tech-training includes small motor maintenance, farm math, insights into feeding rates, watching for plankton blooms, and monitoring fish health (biopsies).

It is a six-month course which includes CPR, first aid, WHMIS, forklift training, and EMS (internal); and employees are trained for spill response, risk assessment, and operation of marine-vessels like small boats and other watercraft.

Terry Smith, aforementioned area manager for the Klemtu North farm sites, hires people who show the requisite enthusiasm for the work. What is missing on the west coast, according to Terry, is a working post-secondary education research and training facility.

This kind of an investment is made in other countries like Norway that engage in the industrial production of a protein base in seafood. He suggests that the ministry of post-secondary education making an investment in research could discover new directions to take with these agriculture/aquaculture/mariculture developments.

The reality is developments are necessary in that they are constructed to fill a gap in the supply chain of seafood to the food basket (see video and slide where Ian Roberts of MHC explains how aquaculture fits into the food supply).

If things are changing beneath farm sites, it behooves public authorities to seek an understanding of what is happening. Canadian fish farmers cope with harmful plankton (and algae called heterosigma http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterosigma_akashiwo and this way, whereas farm sites in Norway and Chile do not have the same problems with plankton.

The fact remains that fish farms make adaptations to the environment in order to make fish thrive, in other words, the farm sites are 'created' environments. "We are close to creating aquariums in the ocean by using aerated water, moving preferred water by lifting it to displace harmful plankton from the net-pens,” Ian Roberts, Marine Harvest Canada communications manager, explained.

Dr. Steve Cross of Pacific SEAlab at University of Victoria is investigating the potential for a 'polyculture' to develop around fish farm sites. If the sites are changing area ecology perhaps it could be put to commercial use. Cross intends to grow black cod in net-pens, and seaweed, scallops, and sea cucumbers near the pens, and monitor the growth (and biological condition) of prawns. (Black cod is a north Pacific species.)

"We call it integrated multi-tropic aquaculture," and Cross is experimenting with black cod, kelp, scallops, and other species, "It hasn't quite fully kicked off yet," but he has spent the past year putting it together. Now the net-pens are in place and the fish will be moved within a few weeks.

"We have about one kilometre of kelp laid in this month, and we are moving in half a million scallops (in Feb, 2008). When the fish are moved into the pens we will move sea cucumber into the site under the pens.

“It is a natural habitat for them and they are eaters of all the biomass fallout." (Sea cucumber)

"We are getting set up and licensed," Cross explained, including fitting into base-line environmental regulations and other arrangements. By this summer the site will be thriving with activity, and possibly with polyculture.

"We are a pilot-scale test around the issue of fish farm waste management," Cross, added, and the task is to find out if there are uses for the organic nutrient loads that are obviously generated by fish pens.

Cross agreed the research is lacking at present, "We think this is an important avenue of research," investigating the commercial potential for farm sites to develop polyculture seafood developments.  "We are designing a balanced system and will report the science," in the usual publications.

"We have a lot of interest in the research," from a cross-section of organizations, said Cross, "including the World Wildlife Federation and Greenpeace expressing interest in the outflow of reports. We are seeking a solution to some of the problems perceived to be associated with raising commercial quantities of fish in net-pens. We are trying to address the waste issue," because no one seems to be convinced that closed bags offer alternatives.

If the results prove positive fish farms will suddenly represent a new economic opportunity and research may provide further incentive to develop commercial polyculture sites in the west coast aquaculture/mariculture scheme of things.

"We may find a commercial solution," to mitigate against the purportedly deleterious ecological presence of stand-alone fish farms.