Food for Thought: Farmed Salmon and the Future

In less than a generation, farmed salmon production has ballooned around the world. The harvest from fish farms now exceeds the wild salmon catch.

As fish farming has expanded, it has brought investment and jobs to isolated coastal communities in Norway, Scotland, Chile, British Columbia and other places. But it's no longer being viewed as a benign economic booster.

Salmon farms are blamed for incubating diseases, causing pollution and potentially disrupting wild salmon runs. In Norway, the world's largest producer of farmed salmon, fish farm escapees represent up to 80% of the salmon in some rivers. On the Pacific coast, British Columbia's farmed salmon industry is ten times larger than Washington's, and continues to expand. That puts B.C. on something of a collision course with its neighbor Alaska, home to the world's largest wild salmon runs.

In Food for Thought: Farmed Salmon and the Future, producer Gordon Black looks at the environmental, economic and cultural implications of British Columbia's fish farm industry. Hide full description

In less than a generation, farmed salmon production has ballooned around the world. The harvest from fish farms now exceeds the wild salmon catch. As fish farming has expanded, it has brought investment and jobs to isolated coastal communities in Norway, Scotland, Chile, British Columbia and other places. But it's no longer being viewed as a benign economic booster. Salmon farms are blamed for incubating diseases, causing pollution and potentially disrupting wild salmon runs. In Norway, the world's largest producer of farmed salmon, fish farm escapees represent up to 80% of the salmon in some rivers. On the Pacific coast, British Columbia's farmed salmon industry is ten times larger than Washington's, and continues to expand. That puts B.C. on something of a collision course with... Show full description