Several groups are raising concerns over the approval for the production of genetically modified (GM) salmon in P.E.I.
AquaBounty has announced that Canada’s minister of environment and climate change approved production of its GM salmon at the site.
Sharon Labchuk of Earth Action P.E.I. criticized the approval, which will make P.E.I. the first province in Canada to produce GM salmon.
“Canada and P.E.I. will now be associated with the controversial and risky production of the world’s first GM fish,” said Labchuk. “But Canadians were never consulted, and the product is not even labelled in our grocery stores.”
The GM salmon is sold in Canada but there is no mandatory labelling of GM foods.
AquaBounty said it will produce 250 metric tons of GM Atlantic salmon each year at a Rollo Bay factory and that the first harvest will be in late 2020.
“This decision is the first step in a dangerous expansion of GM fish production. We need a national consultation on improving regulation before new GM animals are approved. We need democracy and transparency on this issue.” - Mark Butler, Ecology Action Centre
“This decision means more Canadians will be eating GM salmon without knowing,” said Lucy Sharratt of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network.
AquaBounty started selling GM salmon in Canada in 2017, produced at its small pilot plant in Panama. Canada had been the only country where GM salmon could be sold until the U.S. government reversed an import ban in March.
AquaBounty can now sell GM salmon in the U.S. and ship its GM salmon eggs from P.E.I. to a second commercial-scale factory that the company is setting up in Indiana.
Although the P.E.I. production site is on land, environmental groups continue to raise concerns about GM salmon escaping into the wild.
“More GM salmon means more risk to wild Atlantic salmon. That is the science,” said Mark Butler of the Ecology Action Centre. “This decision is the first step in a dangerous expansion of GM fish production. We need a national consultation on improving regulation before new GM animals are approved. We need democracy and transparency on this issue.”
The fish is genetically engineered, with a growth hormone gene from Chinook salmon and genetic material from ocean pout, to grow faster than other farmed salmon.
“How do we know what we’re eating?” asked Mary Boyd of the MacKillop Centre for Social Justice in P.E.I., “Health Canada should never have allowed a GM fish onto the market without labelling for consumers. We urgently need labels.”
