by Geoff Leboutillier, Healthy Bays Network member
The Atlantic Canada Fish Farmers Association (ACFFA) is spending big bucks on advertising lately. Two months, two big four-colour ads in South Shore community paper The Masthead, circulation: 30,400. They seem to be targeting coastal communities. Could it be the pending municipal, provincial and federal elections?
One slick ad was buttressed by an equally slick letter to the editor. To the uninformed it might read like truth. The threat posed by open-net pen feedlots on our lobster industry, our #1 export by the way, is outrageously disproportionate. “We are but one viral video away from disaster,” warned lobster exporter Stewart Lamont at Healthy Bays’ June press conference. “Imagine the impact on foreign markets – lobsters crawling around on meter deep mountains of net pen excrement.” Yum yum. There goes our reputation for crystal clear North Atlantic waters, “Canada’s Ocean Playground.”
“Go wild for farmed Atlantic salmon!” blasts the brazen ACFFA ads, cunningly associating the word “wild” with their decidedly unwild product. “Go wild?” You bet. Wild with outrage. “Low carbon footprint,” the ad brags. "One of the top five ways to address climate change.” What? No mention of their diesel-powered boats and generators, sourcing and delivering their feed, their tractor trailers shipping slaughtered fish by the tonne to New Brunswick for processing, and then the trucking and air freight getting their product to market, and above all, remaining silent on the disastrous environmental impact of their pens on our coasts. As if that weren’t enough, the ad implies UN endorsement while in fact, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) calls for a major paradigm shift in fish farming’s biosecurity. Viruses, bacteria, and parasites, they say, are spread from country to country through the global fish feedlot network.
The ad also touts farmed fish as “Planet-Friendly Protein” and cites the “Coller FAIRR Protein Producer Index.” Google Coller FAIRR and discover they too have serious reservations. Fish farmers, they say, “do not have a robust, long-term strategy to further reduce their reliance on wild-caught fish used as feed for farmed salmon.” The FAO agrees. “The growing production of fishmeal in some countries in West Africa, mainly destined for exports, is leading to concerns about food security.”
Under the heading “Farmed and wild,” again suggesting the “wild” may refer to their unwild product, the ACFFA ad closes by claiming a benign 25 year co-existence with our lobster industry. The two lobster industry panelists at the HBN press conference would vehemently disagree. The feedlots spell disaster.
And here’s the capper: insiders report the industry has government convinced HBN is misrepresenting the facts. Money talks. Powered by obscene profit margins, lavish government support, non-existent license fees, zero fines for egregious environmental degradation, the ACFFA can afford splashy ads and high-priced lobbyists. HBN on a dime, armed with proven facts and common sense, is up against a $5B multinational. Not exactly a level playing field.
In June Parliament passed and gave Royal Assent to Bill C-59 making greenwashing illegal and levelling major fines. Perhaps the so-called “fish farmers” should dial back some of their more extravagant claims and stop spreading lies.
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