FREDERICTON – They may look almost the same and taste the same, but
genetically modified salmon bred at a P.E.I. aquaculture firm could
soon be served up in place of wild Atlantic salmon.
Aquabounty Technologies, of Massachusetts, wants the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve its genetically modified (GMO)
fish fit for human consumption.
It would be a first time a GMO animal product could be sold
as food and it would be produced in half the time. (Genetically-modified plant
crops are already common place in food produced and sold around the world.)
“This has gone through the FDA, it’s gone through
tremendous amounts of research and science,” says Peter Brenders.
Brenders is the president and CEO of BIOTECanada, an
Ottawa-based firm that serves as “Canada’s voice for biotechnology.”
“It’s the same fish, it’s just growing faster,” he
says.
But, it’s not quite the same.
AquaBounty’s salmon, known as AquAdvantage, contains genes
from a chinook salmon, the largest species of Pacific salmon.
By comparison, the wild Atlantic salmon grows to about an
average weight of four kilograms.
According to AquaBounty, it takes the standard salmon about
800 days from its first feeding to reach that size.
The AquaAdvantage salmon reaches that size almost 200 days faster
and can grow up to 6 kilograms in only 700 days from first feeding.
The company says it plans to produce only sterile female
salmon eggs which will be raised at inland facilities.
The eggs would actually be transported from P.E.I. to a
facility in Panama to be hatched and raised, before being shipped to the U.S.
AquaBounty says on its website the fish will “pose no
threat to wild salmon populations” and would not be able to reproduce
anyhow.
Environmental groups aren’t convinced.
Organizations such as the Fundy Baykeeper are raising flags
about the of local ecosystems.
They’re concerned the GMO species could wind up being
introduced into the wild, one way or another,
Coordinator Matthew Abbott told Global News Tuesday if the
AquAdvantage salmon got into regional waters it “could serve as the death
nail to our wild salmon in the long term.”
“Once we open this Pandora’s Box,” Abbot says,
“there’s no guarantee that these fish won’t sooner or later end up in open
net pens in the ocean.”
And then there’s the issue of how safe it is to eat a
genetically-altered fish.
Jaydee Hansen, a policy analyst with the Centre for Food Safety, says more trials need to happen in order to answer food safety
questions.
“They’re more likely to have jaw erosion, they’re more
likely to have guild deformations, they’re more likely to have focal
inflammations,” Hansen says.
She says the GMO salmon are more likely to get sick.
The scientist that patented the genetic farming technique in
the late-1980s spoke out Thursday, saying opponents are spreading
misinformation.
Dr. Garth Fletcher says criticisms
are based on “assumptions and presumptions.”
“There’s no evidence of these fish behaving any
differently from standard salmon,” Fletcher says.
Regardless of this claim, fish farmers in the region don’t
see any reason for the GMO species to be produced in the first place.
The chairwoman of the Atlantic Canada Fish Farmers
Association, the organization that represents most of the firms producing
farmed salmon in the region, says there isn’t sufficient market demand to
introduce a product that hasn’t been declared safe by all regulatory bodies.
“We’re not sure what motivation we would ever have for
introducing such a controversial topic into the marketplace,” Nell Halse
says.
Sustaining a growing population
Proponents say the production of GMO foods is the only way
to sustain the planet’s growing population, which is expected to hit seven
billion in a matter of days.
The British government’s chief scientist, Sir John Beddington,
warned in January the majority of the world’s citizens will be living in urban
areas and won’t be involved in raising the food they eat.
Beddington told London’s Guardian newspaper the world would
need 40 per cent more food and 30 per cent more water by the time the
population reaches nine billion, which is expected to happen in 2050.
“Around 30% of food is lost before it can be harvested
because it is eaten by pests that we never learnt how to control,” Beddington
explained, referring to GMO plant-based crops. “We cannot afford that kind
of loss to continue.”
We’ve
already seen the effects of food shortages, Beddington said, and in the next
decade it will only get worse if action is not taken.
Oxfam refutes claims there is not enough food on the planet
for eveyone, saying 17 per cent more food is produced than there was
three decades ago.
The real problem is most of the world’s hungry don’t have
the means to grow or purchase the food they need to survive.
The organization also says on its website, 65 per cent of
the world’s hungry live in seven countries: India, China, the Democratic
Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia.
*With files from Mayya Assouad
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