Red rating challenges farmed salmon certification sustainability claims.
In case you missed it, in December, B.C. farmed salmon was red-listed by U.S. seafood sustainability rating program, Seafood Watch (SFW). The downgrade confirms seafood shoppers should avoid buying B.C. open net-pen farmed salmon.
But it also raises questions about how these very same farms can be eco-certified as “farmed responsibly”, despite being red rated. So let’s break down the situation.
What earned B.C.’s industry a red rating?
The SFW assessment acknowledges that sea lice outbreaks, fuelled by ineffective lice management and drug resistance, continue to plague farms and place juvenile wild salmon at risk. Meanwhile, rapidly developing research from the Strategic Salmon Health Initiative (and other groups) has highlighted concerns that bacterial and viral pathogens, which are released freely into the surrounding water by farms, could be leading to negative consequences to vulnerable wild salmon populations.
B.C.’s salmon farming industry also received a red rating because of its continued use of antibiotics listed as “highly important for human medicine” by the World Health Organization. On average, a B.C. salmon farm uses antibiotics 1.3 times a year.
What about those B.C. farms that are certified as “responsible” and “best practice”?
All active B.C. grow-out farms are certified by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) and Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP). These are the same farms that produced the red rating. Yet even SFW, which assigned the red rating, recommends ASC-certified salmon as a “buy” option; but does not recommend BAP-certified salmon. Confusing, no?
SeaChoice has serious concerns regarding SFW’s “buy” endorsement for ASC salmon. The recommendation is based on an out-of-date exercise from 2017, in which SFW assessed the ASC’s Salmon Standard against its own methodology and benchmarked ASC’s salmon certification as equivalent to its yellow or “good alternative” rating. However, the benchmark is based on an obsolete version of the ASC Standard (it has been updated twice since 2017) and fails to take into account ASC-approved changes to the Standard that substantially alter or exempt farms from critical environmental provisions.
Are any sustainability certifications living up to their claims?
Aquaculture certifications and their associated labels make open net-pen farmed salmon appear sustainable. In actuality, these certifications are failing to protect wild salmon from disease and sea lice due to their loopholes and many “business as usual” criteria for farm certification.
That SFW used data from ASC-certified B.C. salmon farms to come to its red rating due to uncontrolled sea lice outbreaks is evidence of the fact that ASC certification is not protecting wild salmon. ASC farms in B.C. have had sea lice counts over 20 mature lice per fish, while others had counts as high as 149 times the level ASC prescribes in its Standard. The farms were simply exempted from complying with this aspect of the Standard.
Read more about how farmed salmon certified labels stack up in our infosheet on the topic – as part of our ‘Beyond Open Net-Pen Aquaculture’ briefing series.
Red rating comes at a pivotal moment for the industry
Serendipitously, another related and significant development occurred in December – the Minister of Fisheries’ mandate letter re-committed the government to the following:
“Continue to work with the province of British Columbia and Indigenous communities on a responsible plan to transition from open net-pen salmon farming in coastal British Columbia waters by 2025”
This commitment has the potential to ensure the industry is actually observing “best practice” and its product is “responsibly farmed” – and not just certified with the claim to be so. The rating of B.C. farmed salmon as “avoid” due to its impacts on wild salmon reinforces the need to transition the industry from coastal waters to land-based recirculating closed systems. Such farming systems have earned a SFW green, or “best choice” rating.
So, should you buy B.C. farmed salmon, or not?
Certifications that claim “best practice” or “farmed responsibly” don’t cut it when those practices are largely industry norms that continue to threaten wild salmon populations. Until such time that the B.C. salmon farming industry transitions to land-based, closed containment facilities, shoppers should continue to avoid open net-pen farmed salmon – certified or not.
