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New Fed. Report says should explore moving Fish Farms to Land
- Thread starter Rockfish
- Start date
sockeyefry2
Member
Easy now Holmes. You 're getting all red in the face again LOL.
Of course they should look at CC systems. The first airplanes never fllew too well, but eventually they got it worked out. New RAS systems are better than the old ones. I should know, cause I've been involved with the construction and commisioning of 4 in the last 10 years.
Lets see how the new ones being built make out. Then go from there.
Don't know if you can entirely eliminate the ocean pens from the equation, but with the use of CC farms in combination with finishing farms in the ocean, the time the salmon are at sea can be dramatically reduced from years to months. This way you can manage the usage periods around local needs such as out migration of wild smolt.
Of course they should look at CC systems. The first airplanes never fllew too well, but eventually they got it worked out. New RAS systems are better than the old ones. I should know, cause I've been involved with the construction and commisioning of 4 in the last 10 years.
Lets see how the new ones being built make out. Then go from there.
Don't know if you can entirely eliminate the ocean pens from the equation, but with the use of CC farms in combination with finishing farms in the ocean, the time the salmon are at sea can be dramatically reduced from years to months. This way you can manage the usage periods around local needs such as out migration of wild smolt.
All your posts are pro-fish farms, do you work for them sockeyefry2?
sad to see another member of this forum who has nothing to contribute regarding the reason for this site: SPORT FISHING
Feds gotta pretend they care about the cohen commission I guess.
What are the 15,000 jobs the government is so worried about losing? I can't see that many in Canada how many sites are there? I'm sure workers go from site to site if they are close. Are they counting double or triple IE 15,000 jobs but 5,000 employees?
What are the 15,000 jobs the government is so worried about losing? I can't see that many in Canada how many sites are there? I'm sure workers go from site to site if they are close. Are they counting double or triple IE 15,000 jobs but 5,000 employees?
No one else is allowed or supposed to be throwing their garbage into the ocean so why on earth are fish farms allowed to. And that is the problem here the fish farms need to be taken out of our oceans where they and their garbage do not belong. Fish farms and their employees should be band from being within 10 km from any river, stream, lake, or ocean. Kind of like sex offenders not being allowed to be close to children or schools!!!
evolve away from salmon and meat eating farmed fish
Salmon farming only exists because of the wild fish that are being harvested to feed them. Any collapses in the wild fish feed would end salmon farming on or off land. Is farming salmon at all a good idea? Paul Greenberg's book "Four fish" is a fantastic read for those interested in fish farming and wild fish issues.
ClayoquotKid
Active Member
Salmon farming could soon be conducted using cultured algae to provide omega 3's ect. and all fishmeal could come from commercial discards and offal from processing wild fish.
Would it be OK then?
I see technology being utilised/created for the recovery and use of "waste" products from other fisheries, or new forms of feed production, happening long before the challenges of taking fish out the ocean are overcome.
Charter Tofino
Well-Known Member
That would be great to see but i agree that the current consumption to production rate is not as efficient as it will need to be in the future. Does anyone know the figure? Is it 3 lbs of wild fish utilized for 1 lb of farmed salmon?
steel_dreamin
Member
Here's a simple question for the pro farmers - if there is no impact to the aquatic environment from "open" pens why bother with CC systems?
It appears there are conversations conducted behind closed doors as you don't invest Capital to just feel good.
It appears there are conversations conducted behind closed doors as you don't invest Capital to just feel good.
Foxsea
Well-Known Member
It's 1.2 : 1 or 5 : 1 or maybe even 8 : 1?
The salmon farming industry argues that salmon is an incredibly efficient eater, with a feed conversion rate (FCR) of about 1.2 to 1 compared with 8 : 1 for land-based animals such as cattle. This, however, is a misleading argument: comparing apples and oranges.
The primary food producer in water is phytoplankton, which gets eaten by zooplankton (e.g. krill). Small, non-carnivorous fish (anchovy) eat the krill and then get eaten by larger predator fish such as salmon higher up on the food pyramid. To raise carnivorous species like salmon on farms, we have to catch a lot of forage fish and grind them into fishmeal and fish oil as feed. How much? According to most realistic estimates, it takes five pounds of wild-caught herring, sardines, anchovies, and other forage fish to produce a pound of farmed salmon.
How do we get to the FCR of 1.2 : 1, then? It’s just that those five pounds are processed into highly concentrated oily pellets of 1.2 pounds, which when fed to the salmon, gives a FCR of 1.2 : 1. If salmon had to feed on grass or phytoplankton, their FCR would not look nearly that good! The higher up on the trophic pyramid (moving from a herbivorous through an omnivorous to a purely carnivorous diet) we go, the lower the conversion ratio. That's because most of the conversion work has already been done by an organism on a more basic trophic level. One of the foods with the most concentrated food energy available would be fats, e.g. fish oil. This is contained in the processed food fed to farmed salmon, so no wonder the FCR promoted by industry is so good. The food the salmon eat is already very highly concentrated. But to compare apples and apples, we should have to calculate how much conversion was required on the lower levels. We know the FCR from krill to salmon will be greater than 5:1.
There is also the fundamental issue of whether or not farming carnivorous species such as salmon is actually sustainable. Unlike herbivorous species (like tilapia and carp. Conversion 1.8 :1) that require minimal inputs of fishmeal, salmon require the harvesting of forage fish and krill for fishmeal and oil in unsustainable amounts. Salmon farming also creates a large carbon footprint in the harvesting, transport and processing of forage fish.
The salmon farming industry argues that salmon is an incredibly efficient eater, with a feed conversion rate (FCR) of about 1.2 to 1 compared with 8 : 1 for land-based animals such as cattle. This, however, is a misleading argument: comparing apples and oranges.
The primary food producer in water is phytoplankton, which gets eaten by zooplankton (e.g. krill). Small, non-carnivorous fish (anchovy) eat the krill and then get eaten by larger predator fish such as salmon higher up on the food pyramid. To raise carnivorous species like salmon on farms, we have to catch a lot of forage fish and grind them into fishmeal and fish oil as feed. How much? According to most realistic estimates, it takes five pounds of wild-caught herring, sardines, anchovies, and other forage fish to produce a pound of farmed salmon.
How do we get to the FCR of 1.2 : 1, then? It’s just that those five pounds are processed into highly concentrated oily pellets of 1.2 pounds, which when fed to the salmon, gives a FCR of 1.2 : 1. If salmon had to feed on grass or phytoplankton, their FCR would not look nearly that good! The higher up on the trophic pyramid (moving from a herbivorous through an omnivorous to a purely carnivorous diet) we go, the lower the conversion ratio. That's because most of the conversion work has already been done by an organism on a more basic trophic level. One of the foods with the most concentrated food energy available would be fats, e.g. fish oil. This is contained in the processed food fed to farmed salmon, so no wonder the FCR promoted by industry is so good. The food the salmon eat is already very highly concentrated. But to compare apples and apples, we should have to calculate how much conversion was required on the lower levels. We know the FCR from krill to salmon will be greater than 5:1.
There is also the fundamental issue of whether or not farming carnivorous species such as salmon is actually sustainable. Unlike herbivorous species (like tilapia and carp. Conversion 1.8 :1) that require minimal inputs of fishmeal, salmon require the harvesting of forage fish and krill for fishmeal and oil in unsustainable amounts. Salmon farming also creates a large carbon footprint in the harvesting, transport and processing of forage fish.
I have heard that 1.2 to 1 ratio many times from the net pen industry when defending on this issue. Thanks for a concise and exacting explanation and an example of how the industry twists, massages, and cherry pick the facts. They have a canned, less than forthright answer for every negative facing them. That is what high powered public relations firms and communications people are paid to do.
Normally we would expect government to play a large role in keeping them honest, but for this industry, government departments and ministries have been ordered to protect and act as marketing shills for the industry. More recently the current provincial government is trying to put in place gag order legislation to prevent others from making public inconvenient or damaging information. Is it any wonder that Cohen and many others view DFO as being in a structural conflict of interest when it comes to both protecting our wild fish and protecting and promoting the open net pen industry?
This process and report seems to be nothing more than government trying to take the pressure off the industry and themselves by appearing to be looking for alternatives. The headline itself seems to be a soother for a public growing uneasiness with this industry, while business as usual continues.
The critical paragraph in the entire newspaper story is:
“But while the report promotes closed containment systems as a technology of the future. It leaves the door open to the CONTINUED GROWTH of the existing ocean-based salmon farming industry. Dismissing evidence of environmental damage caused by open net-pen fish farms as “inconclusive” .
The one tiny ray of hope is the use of the word “inconclusive” when it comes to environmental damage and harm to our wild salmon. In the past the industry and its government backers seem to have taken the position that there is no information that the industry is doing any damage or represents any risk.
If the evidence is now considered “inconclusive” (at least by the industry and its government backers) why is the Precautionary Principal not being enforced? Why the free ride for this industry on this basic principal of fisheries management? How much sway do their PR firms and lobbyists have?
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feed conversion ratios ad closed contaiment
great responses by foxsea, rockfish and others. Just to add a few more points:
the feed conversion ration (FCR) is a ratio of nearly dry weight to wet weight of grown fish. It does NOT mean that 1.2 - 1.4 lbs of forage fish produces 1 lb of farmed salmon. A few pro salmon farm advocates still get this wrong.
You have to look at how much wet weight of feed was used to produce that 1.3 lbs of pellets. Since the 2 major fish components of fish feed are fishmeal AND fish oil - you also had to add-in how much fish was rendered down into fish oil and add that weight into your calculations.
Since that oil quantity AND (more importantly) sources vary between formulas that make-up different feed products - that magic number can vary wildly.
Also, fish farm feed companies have been trying to reduce the amount of fish oil that is used in making fish feed as it is expensive and hard to come by as world forage fish resources are depleted for the farmed fish market and pet food markets combined.
However, due to the fact that juvenile fish desperately need the longer chain fatty acids found in fish oil to grow properly - that amount of simpler short-chain non-fish source (i.e. vegetable) oils can only be increased up to a certain amount. If juvenile fish do not receive enough long-chain fatty acids in their diet - they grow slower, deformed and/or die.
Having said all this: it's about 4.5 lbs wet weight of forage fish (including fish used to produce fish oil) to produce 1 lb of farmed salmon. One has to ask if the loss of 3.5 lbs of fish protein for every 1 lb of farmed salmon raised is a good idea.
As far as closed containment goes - it is more expensive to raise farmed salmon using this technology rather than open net-pens. Ther have been quite a number of experimental trials and associated reports that detail this.
The capital costs are not so different - it's the costs to provide oxygen, the costs to remove the feaces, and the loss of forage fish and smolts in their rather large feed bill that contribute to the cost increases.
Having said all that: so what? They still can make a buck, and wild stocks are protected using closed containment. Why aren't they using this technology?
Answer: They don't want to. These are corporations. They have shareholders. They want to make as much money as possible, and download as much costs as possible onto us the public and the public resources. They have proven that they really don't care about wild salmon stocks - their competition in the marketplace and in the farm-producing areas of the coast.
They pay off politicians to get their way. It is but another very corrupt corporate industry.
One has to ask: do we have to put up with it? Are you mad enough to do something about it?
great responses by foxsea, rockfish and others. Just to add a few more points:
the feed conversion ration (FCR) is a ratio of nearly dry weight to wet weight of grown fish. It does NOT mean that 1.2 - 1.4 lbs of forage fish produces 1 lb of farmed salmon. A few pro salmon farm advocates still get this wrong.
You have to look at how much wet weight of feed was used to produce that 1.3 lbs of pellets. Since the 2 major fish components of fish feed are fishmeal AND fish oil - you also had to add-in how much fish was rendered down into fish oil and add that weight into your calculations.
Since that oil quantity AND (more importantly) sources vary between formulas that make-up different feed products - that magic number can vary wildly.
Also, fish farm feed companies have been trying to reduce the amount of fish oil that is used in making fish feed as it is expensive and hard to come by as world forage fish resources are depleted for the farmed fish market and pet food markets combined.
However, due to the fact that juvenile fish desperately need the longer chain fatty acids found in fish oil to grow properly - that amount of simpler short-chain non-fish source (i.e. vegetable) oils can only be increased up to a certain amount. If juvenile fish do not receive enough long-chain fatty acids in their diet - they grow slower, deformed and/or die.
Having said all this: it's about 4.5 lbs wet weight of forage fish (including fish used to produce fish oil) to produce 1 lb of farmed salmon. One has to ask if the loss of 3.5 lbs of fish protein for every 1 lb of farmed salmon raised is a good idea.
As far as closed containment goes - it is more expensive to raise farmed salmon using this technology rather than open net-pens. Ther have been quite a number of experimental trials and associated reports that detail this.
The capital costs are not so different - it's the costs to provide oxygen, the costs to remove the feaces, and the loss of forage fish and smolts in their rather large feed bill that contribute to the cost increases.
Having said all that: so what? They still can make a buck, and wild stocks are protected using closed containment. Why aren't they using this technology?
Answer: They don't want to. These are corporations. They have shareholders. They want to make as much money as possible, and download as much costs as possible onto us the public and the public resources. They have proven that they really don't care about wild salmon stocks - their competition in the marketplace and in the farm-producing areas of the coast.
They pay off politicians to get their way. It is but another very corrupt corporate industry.
One has to ask: do we have to put up with it? Are you mad enough to do something about it?
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ClayoquotKid
Active Member
Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) is the amount of body weight gained for every kilogram of feed consumed. Using current feeding practices, and depending on what ingredients are available, it takes between 1.1 and 1.2 kilograms of feed to grow one kilogram of farmed Atlantic salmon. Feed companies are always working to improve this ratio and have nearly reached a one-to-one ratio.
When it comes to converting feed into protein for human consumption, salmon are the most efficient out of all farmed animals:
Feed conversion ratios
Salmon
1.2 meaning it takes 120g of feed to produce 100g of salmon
Salmon feed only uses 1.265 kilograms of small wild fish to grow one kilogram of salmon.
Salmon feed contains fishmeal and fish oil, which comes from small wild fish caught in one of the world's most sustainable fisheries, as well as ingredients from plant-based sources.
Our feed is approximately 16 % fishmeal and 13 % fish oil.
Fishmeal and fish oil is made from processing small wild fish. Wild fish yields about 22.5 % fishmeal and about 5% oil, and both fishmeal and oil are produced from the same fish.
The percentage of fishmeal and oil used in the diet (16% + 13% = 29%), divided by the total yield of fishmeal and oil from wild fish (22.5% + 5% = 27.5%), multiplied by our feed conversion ratio (FCR, 1.2), gives the actual amount of wild fish used to grow one kilogram of salmon, which is 1.265 kilograms.
http://www.mainstreamcanada.ca/salm...eed-conversion-ratio-fcr-all-farmed-livestock
http://www.salmonfarmers.org/sites/default/files/ewos_marine_ingredients.pdf
When it comes to converting feed into protein for human consumption, salmon are the most efficient out of all farmed animals:
Feed conversion ratios
Salmon
1.2 meaning it takes 120g of feed to produce 100g of salmon
Salmon feed only uses 1.265 kilograms of small wild fish to grow one kilogram of salmon.
Salmon feed contains fishmeal and fish oil, which comes from small wild fish caught in one of the world's most sustainable fisheries, as well as ingredients from plant-based sources.
Our feed is approximately 16 % fishmeal and 13 % fish oil.
Fishmeal and fish oil is made from processing small wild fish. Wild fish yields about 22.5 % fishmeal and about 5% oil, and both fishmeal and oil are produced from the same fish.
The percentage of fishmeal and oil used in the diet (16% + 13% = 29%), divided by the total yield of fishmeal and oil from wild fish (22.5% + 5% = 27.5%), multiplied by our feed conversion ratio (FCR, 1.2), gives the actual amount of wild fish used to grow one kilogram of salmon, which is 1.265 kilograms.
http://www.mainstreamcanada.ca/salm...eed-conversion-ratio-fcr-all-farmed-livestock
http://www.salmonfarmers.org/sites/default/files/ewos_marine_ingredients.pdf
Like I just quoted - some pro-salmon farm advocates STILL get this wrong.
You stated that wild fish yield only 27.5% fishmeal and 5% oil. The rest - you neglected to mention is mostly water which is removed in the rendering process that produces the "feed" (as dry pellets rather than fresh wild fish) - the "feed" you are actually talkng about in the feed conversion ratio.
You are talking about apples and oranges again - as fourtyfour pointed-out.
When you factor-in the fact that fish are largely water and compare wet weights rather than dry to wet - it's 4.5 or so to 1.
So NO your statement that "Salmon feed only uses 1.265 kilograms of small wild fish to grow one kilogram of salmon." is entirely incorrect and misleading as is much of the information about the negative effects of your industry generated by industry people - as you just demonstrated.
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ClayoquotKid
Active Member
Ok, if the argument here is going to be an apple is actually and orange, and vice versa - then why don't we look at it this way:
Salmon farming is actually a minor component of wild sourced fish oil and meal use.
The product it results in is (IMHO) a high value and highly nutritious one, and the conversion of feed to fish is very good.
Fish meal and oil for "aquaculture" may be large, but salmon farming is just a small component of aquaculture globally.
Therefore, my argument would be - If it were solely the use of wild feed for salmon farming that was the issue, wouldn't the other uses be more important to tackle due to their poor efficiency (pigs, chickens, ect.), or the fact that they weren't even for humans (pets)?
http://www.enaca.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1784
That would be an entirely different question and debate - but still does not negate the fact that 3.5lbs of forage fishes are wasted in the production of 1lb of farmed salmon.
Wow! looks like our Industry PR guy was forced to go off script when actually called on and discredited with the misleading spin they are usually able to get away with in other places like newspaper comments.
I suspect that comment about feeding pets and domestic farm animals is a no no for industry PR types because it is not wise to be taking shots at politically powerful commercial fishing interests and they usually avoid it. Getting flustered I guess. His boss may not be happy.
I see he has managed to post some links to industry propaganda sites on a sport fishing forum, so not a complete loss for him.
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ClayoquotKid
Active Member
Rockfish, I'm going to move the conversation to another point of interest because obviously there is no sense in trying to explain how the calculations actually work when people already have an idea in their head which says otherwise.
The idea that 3.5lbs of wild fish is "wasted" in the production of 1 lb of farmed salmon (agentaqua) is exactly one of those preconceived ideas.
The fact that cats in Australia eat more fish than people do, or that chickens and pigs are fed fish and use it at 2 to 4 times less efficiently than salmon do has no bearing on their stance.
Salmon farming is - in their mind - a bad thing, and no matter how it actually fits in to the global context of protein production they will villify it in whatever way they can.
I think rather than dragging the forum down into name calling and low level jabs, it would be more productive to talk about how these issues actually might be resolved.
I'm a fisherman, have been my whole life - it's Saturday, and I'm doing this because I don't think that pigheaded bullying should be the norm when it comes to discussing how all these elements can be managed into the future.
If I change the subject, or move the conversation in another direction it is simply because some points can be argued endlessly, and if they can't be agreed upon there is no point in continuing.
The idea that 3.5lbs of wild fish is "wasted" in the production of 1 lb of farmed salmon (agentaqua) is exactly one of those preconceived ideas.
The fact that cats in Australia eat more fish than people do, or that chickens and pigs are fed fish and use it at 2 to 4 times less efficiently than salmon do has no bearing on their stance.
Salmon farming is - in their mind - a bad thing, and no matter how it actually fits in to the global context of protein production they will villify it in whatever way they can.
I think rather than dragging the forum down into name calling and low level jabs, it would be more productive to talk about how these issues actually might be resolved.
I'm a fisherman, have been my whole life - it's Saturday, and I'm doing this because I don't think that pigheaded bullying should be the norm when it comes to discussing how all these elements can be managed into the future.
If I change the subject, or move the conversation in another direction it is simply because some points can be argued endlessly, and if they can't be agreed upon there is no point in continuing.
Talk about "preconceived notions"...ClayoquotKid you appear to be incapable of understanding (or rather admittng) that there is a net loss of fish protein when you rear caniverous fish - something like 3.5lbs per 1lb of reared Atlantic salmon.
Are other readers of this thread understanding this and what I wrote previously about the FCR?
The other talk from ClayoquotKid about chickens, and pet food may be valid points in themselves if what ClayoquotKid says is true: BUT, BUT, BUT...
THESE POINTS DO NOT INVALIDATE THE FACT AND ARGUMENT THAT REARING FARMED FISH IS A NET LOSS OF PROTEIN FROM THE OCEAN.
end of story. PERIOD. Full stop. ClayoquotKid!!!
Your other arguments appear to be an attempt to hide this fact, rather than the other inane reasons you submit as a reason to ignore this reality. Just admit it ClayoquotKid. You are starting to sound foolish not admitting it after we have been over the numbers numerous times now. GEESSH!!
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