Pure Salmon Campaign Says Farmed Fish Should Not Receive USDA Organic Label

On Tuesday, the Pure Salmon Campaign, a global project of the National Environmental Trust, presented a paper that provides, for the first time, an international inventory of reported escapes from open net cage salmon farms and, as a conclusion, calls on the U.S. to prohibit fish raised in open net cages from carrying the organic label.

According to the Campaign, the escape of millions of salmon from net cages every year has altered marine environments, coastal rivers, and associated food chains spanning the globe, as farmed salmon often compete with native wild salmon for food, mates, and living space.

The paper concludes that between 2000 and 2006, no less than 10.2 million farmed salmon and trout escaped from open net cages, and this escape rate continues in anywhere from thousand to millions annually. Escapes allegedly present risks of increasing disease outbreaks, the proliferation of possible disease transmission routes in the environment, and the compromising of the immune systems of wild fish. Open net cage salmon farming has also been linked by some scientists to sea lice infestations in native, wild salmon populations.

"This international inventory of escapes shows us that despite progressive policies, there is simply no way to prevent escapes from open net cages," said Rachel Hopkins, Pure Salmon Campaign representative and paper author.

Farmed fish have come under much criticism from environmentalists, and some of their other allegations include farmed fish are not as nutritious as wild fish. However, government as well as industry experts have debunked this idea entirely, and assert that there is no scientific evidence at all that farmed fish have any less of the Omega-3 fatty acids that make seafood protein so healthy for the heart and the brain of humans. What's more, they say, they do not contain any risky levels of PCBs or antibiotics.

In addition, the allegations that farmed salmon and trout are bad for the environment due to their competing with wild stock and because of their highly concentrated amounts of fecal matter have also been debunked by regulatory as well as industry scientists. They assert that the fecal matter of these fish gets washed away very efficiently by the currents of the ocean waters and, once there, is disintegrated entirely. They also say that despite the high numbers of escapees from some isolated fish farms that the Campaign reports, most farms seem to be very effective at containing their fish; and what's more, there has never been any proved case of drastic harm to or reduction of wild fish stocks, and the wild fish have even been strengthened by evolving stronger resistance to the diseases that escaped farmed fish might introduce into their habitats.

Sea lice, these scientists say go on to say, are a naturally occurring phenomenon everywhere and do not in any way get increased to "unnatural" proportions on fish farms.

"Until we have proof that open net cage fish farms do not harm the ocean environment or the life within it, farmed fish including salmon should not be allowed to carry the coveted USDA organic label," said Andrea Kavanagh, director of the Pure Salmon Campaign.

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