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Is there a future for salmon farms in Canada?

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Raising a fish out of water
A look at Canada’s only land-based salmon farm that’s taking small fry to full-sized
By Mitchell Gray

Eight large cement tanks on the shore of Vancouver Island may play an important role in determining the next steps in the contentious evolution of salmon farming in Canada. The tanks are part of a facility under lease by AgriMarine Industries for use in exploring land-based salmon farming. Operators of the farm, located in Cedar, B.C., just south of Nanaimo, are working to find ways to make this type of aquaculture both more profitable and more environmentally friendly.

Farming salmon on land during the early, freshwater, stage of life is not uncommon; there are 23 farms across Canada that do it. But the AgriMarine system starts where the others leave off — with smolt — and raises them through the saltwater stage to market size. This is rare for a land-based operation. “We haven’t found any other farms growing salmon in seawater on land in North America,” says Rob Walker, director of operations and marketing for AgriMarine.

WASTE NOT
The AgriMarine farm uses a form of closed-containment system that many critics would like to see replace net farms in the marine environment. Closed systems address some of the issues related to salmon farming, such as the problem of farmed fish escaping into the wild and contaminating the gene pool. But AgriMarine’s system doesn’t fully address another environmental concern: the transfer of concentrated waste from the fish pools into the natural environment. It uses a filterless, flow-through process that pumps water from nearby Stuart Channel into the tanks and then back out to the channel. A waterfall at the end of the effluent path helps break down the waste — but doesn’t contain it.

Water issues may be the main obstacles to the future of land-based salmon farms. Walker notes that if AgriMarine were to build a new site on land, it could be designed to collect the waste: “But the cost of pumping water uphill on a land farm is very expensive. It increases energy use by many magnitudes.” This is one factor, among others, that makes it economically unfeasible to build new land-based salmon farms. There are, however, the old pulp mills on the coast with large tanks that could be used for aquaculture, he says. “Land-based farming in these facilities makes sense, because the capital has already been spent.”

AgriMarine Industries is currently working on a different solution: The group is seeking funding for a closed-containment system they plan to create in the marine environment, a hybrid that would reduce operational costs and keep fish and concentrated fish waste out of the natural environment.

Walker says a focus on closed-containment marine technology for B.C. salmon farming would make the local approach unique. “Here’s an industry that has the potential to be environmentally friendly and economically positive,” he says. “When you compare that to the rest of the world, it would be a great story to tell.”

CAUTION SIGNS
The Cedar, B.C., fish farm is receiving qualified support from conservationists. “Their first farm was a step in the right direction, and their new project is definitely the next step,” says Theresa Rothenbush, an aquaculture specialist with the Raincoast Conservation Society.

Rothenbush says however that closed-containment salmon farms and their ability to separate the farm and natural environments are just “one link in the chain of sustainability that needs to happen.” Another link she views as critical is the way in which farmed fish are fed. She questions the use of South American fish to create feed for farmed salmon. “It’s depleting wild fish stocks to make a luxury food item for North America and Europe,” she points out.

The future of more sustainable endeavours like the proposed AgriMarine project will depend largely on financing, Rothenbush says. “There have been huge steps made in the last three years, but to move forward it’s going to need help from multinational corporations and the government of Canada.” She would prefer to see some of the money currently used to maintain the status quo put instead into a search for alternatives within the industry.

And although she supports the future of sustainable salmon farming, there are limits to Rothenbush’s belief in the ultimate value of the industry. “Salmon aquaculture, although environmentally notorious, represents a small percentage of the world’s aquaculture,” she says, “and it may never have the potential to feed the world in any significant way.”

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