The Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture
Reform (CAAR), together with the other signatories, is calling on the
CGSB to overhaul the weak draft and develop organic aquaculture
standards that are in line with basic organic principles.
The proposed Canadian Organic Aquaculture Standards would cover the
certification of seaweed and shellfish as well as finfish, but the most
troublesome sections of the standards relate to the production of fish
raised in open net pens.
As written, the finfish standards would grant
open net pen farmed salmon organic certification despite the large body
of scientific evidence linking this farming practice to wild salmon
declines and other impacts on the marine environment. They would also
allow fish farmers to grow their crop using pesticides and non-organic,
possibly unsustainable feed sources.
“Consumers, organic farmers, conservation organizations, fishermen
and scientists all agree that these proposed standards fail to meet our
expectation of what’s behind the organic label,” says Kelly Roebuck of
Living Oceans Society, a member group of CAAR. “The Canadian government
has to do better than this or their actions will threaten the integrity
of all Canada’s organic agriculture products.”
The proposed organic aquaculture standards would allow:
- The use of synthetic pesticides;
- The continued, uncontrollable spread of disease and parasites to wild fish;
- Uncontrolled disposal of fish feces into the ocean;
- Escapes of farmed fish that compete or interbreed with wild fish;
- Entanglement and drowning deaths of marine mammals;
- The unrestricted use of feed from non-organic, potentially
unsustainable sources, as opposed to the 100 per cent organic feed
requirement currently in place for all other organic livestock;
- The unlimited use of wild fish in feed. Since operations use
substantially more wild fish in feed than farmed salmon produced, this
allows farmed fish to be certified “organic” despite contributing to a
net loss of marine protein and drain on already strained global fish
stocks.
A Canadian organic aquaculture standard should reflect practices that
address the well-researched impacts of open net pen aquaculture. “Such
weak aquaculture standards undermine producers who are innovating in
order to deliver more responsible products like closed containment
salmon,” says Roebuck.
In order to protect consumers from weak foreign certifications,
Canada and the U.S. currently have an equivalency agreement for organic
standards. Weak Canadian aquaculture standards may put downward pressure
on U.S. standards as they go through the final approval process with
the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The CGSB is accepting public comment on the draft Organic Aquaculture Standards until May 31st 2011. Comments can be made at: www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/ongc-cgsb/programme-program/norms-standards/notification/public-eng.html
Read the joint letter and view the signatories at: www.farmedanddangerous.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/organics_letter_final.pdf
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For Immediate Release
May 27, 2011
For more information, please contact:
Kelly Roebuck, Sustainable Seafood Campaign Manager, Living Oceans
Society, a member group of the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform,
604-696-5044
Over 50 organizations, businesses and fishermen from
across Canada and the U.S. today submitted a joint letter to the
Canadian General Standards Board (CGSB) opposing proposed draft Organic
Standards for Finfish Aquaculture. 
