Giant GMO salmon won't feed more people, be cheaper, or be cleaner. They'll just be terrifying.

from Grist:




Genetically engineered salmon’s fishy promises

by Paul Greenberg
5 Jun 2011 7:00 AM


Cross-posted from Gilt Taste.


For those who follow the theater of food politics, particularly the underwater portion of the drama, AquaBounty's AquAdvantage genetically engineered salmon has played something of leading role for two decades, dating back to the 1990s when the fish was first conceived. The AquAdvantage salmon, in case you haven't heard about it, is an Atlantic salmon with a (much larger) Chinook salmon growth gene inserted into its DNA. This is coupled with a promoter from a third fish, an ocean pout, that keeps that growth gene more or less permanently in the "on" position. This makes for a fish that grows faster than an unmodified salmon -- something which its creators hail as a key to providing more fish for the world and easing the crisis in overfishing.

I have long opposed the AquAdvantage salmon, taking pretty familiar positions that any member of the local/organic/wild food community would recognize: Positions that include the fear that the fish will escape and contaminate wild populations of salmon, and that the fish requires much wasteful transport since it would be cloned in Canada, grown in Panama, and then flown back to the U.S. for consumption. But at a recent lecture when I was laying out these old chestnuts, it suddenly occurred to me that the non-fishy public might be missing one monumental fact about the AquAdvantage salmon, with all its attendant risks:

It is completely unnecessary.

Despite AquaBounty's appeals to our concern about overfished oceans, the environmental and market advantages they claim for their genetically modified salmon are readily debunked. And while the fish is not very useful to us or the oceans, it may be, in fact, very useful to AquaBounty -- in a grab to control salmon farming as we know it. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.grist.org/industrial-agriculture/2011-06-05-genetically-engineered-salmons-fishy-promises

cutting costs is king, has been since Walmart took raising prices off the table...which lead to (with legislative help) moving production away from the US.

More meat per fish. Unfortunately :sarcasm: unlike CAFO's the fish actually have to move to grow into harvestable size- that requires more space which means more money.

BTW- the Tilapia is a cleaner-fish that the industry suddenly realized they could sell. It has been a necessary expense at fish farms for years....you know like janitors. They would package janitors and sell them if they could.

the fish shit and the sea lice from the pens screw up the environment.

http://www.purezing.com/living/food_articles/living_articles_7salmon.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/01/040109072244.htm

Recently, in an effort to educate the nutritionally ignorant, the government replaced the Food Pyramid with the Dinner Plate. One of the spots on the plate is reserved for protein, for which demand continues to grow.

The aquaculture industry will need to grow in the future and those who seek to block that growth exhibit a callous disregard for the nutritional requirements of a healthy populace.

Fish farms probably need to be isolated from the sea so the fish shit, etc., can be captured.
More like a big aquarium than a cage in the sea.
Pump seawater in, and filter the stuff going back out.
Is fish poop useful as fertilizer?

Japan will need this kind of fish farm anyway, because of Fukushima.

nt

n/t

You offer,

"You are free to choose not to eat the products of aquaculture."

The fact is that genetically modified foods and organisms rarely, if ever, stay confined.

What's to worry about? The "industry" has charts, graphs and studies showing it's perfectly safe and America's great savior. Never mind the destruction of aquifers and water supplies.

Remember science also gave us DDT and people like Rachel Carson (and my Dad) were vilified for saying it was killing us. Once again the industry had plenty of studies, charts and graphs showing how it was not only good for us but that civilization would end without it. Hmmm turns out Rachel and my Dad were right all along. It's going to take a few generations to even partially rectify the damage.

Corporate "science" scares me for good reason. If you think that these people have our best interest at heart then you're deluded.

I knew then that they were all fear and hysteria.

however most of those involved copywritting and market monopolization.

I can understand farmers being weary of them knowing that if GMO seeds drift in to their lots they will be sued out of existence.

Or worrying that a few seed companies will come to dominate the market and be able to set their own prices.

Or even concerns over loss of genetic diversity making the possibility of a massive disease wiping out an entire industry all that more likely.

However those concerns, and the people who express them, don't tend to be at the forefront. All that can be dealt with via legal channels and policy.

Unfortunately the nuts who think eating genes is going to make them mutate in to zombies have taken over the debate.

I support the use of GMO crops, with reasonable laws to protect those farmers who want nothing to do with them as well as public seed banks to preserve unmodified cultivars. However these nuts make it impossible to address real concerns. They make it an all or none sort of thing.

In other words I wish they'd shut up and let the adults deal with this.

Not the technology itself.

a bumpersticker on a friend's truck reads.

Fukushima may complicate the wild salmon situation, tho. Radiation in the Pacific feeding grounds could fuck things up.

I encourage everybody on the West coast to patronize their local Native American fishermen. Tribes mostly have their own hatcheries and fishermen sell direct to the consumer.

Make a friend and get great fish at a great price.

$30.00 / 3 pounds at Costco
Now I have another thing to worry about.

If there are any around here I would have no idea how to find them.

Even if I could, how would their fish be any less radioactive than other Pacific salmon?

Is anyone testing the fish for radioactivity here?

"the fish will escape and contaminate wild populations of salmon".

. . . "no one could have foreseen that happening"

Likely outside of controlled conditions these animals will be at a disadvantage and will not succeed compared to their wild brothers.

We don't engineer any animals/plants that are better able to survive in the wild than their undomesticated relatives. None.

We try to buy only wild caught seafood from sustainable stocks. That said, I have occasionally bought some farm raised stuff. One notable purchase was farm-raised salmon from Scotland. I was told no color had been added, so that was a good thing. I bought it initially solely for the way the flesh was formed. Wild salmon has flesh "flakes" that are smaller and closer together. In the farmed salmon they were thicker/further apart. (I know I am not describing this well. Think rings on a tree trunk.)

Anyway, the Scottish salmon was perfect for making gravlax. I didn't like it cooked as we do for wild salmon, but for graving it was very nice. It took the flavor better, meaning I could use a lot less salt. It was also fattier, which made for a bore "buttery" mouth feel when eaten as gravlax.

Would this have been the same fish you're discussing?

umm...bigger farmed salmon means cheaper food for humans. Sounds great to me. Gonna get me some huge, cheap GMO, farmed salmon.

I thought leftism was supposed to be about making life better for the majority? Cheaper salmon is good, not bad.