77 Replies to “So You Don’t Like High Intensity Farming”

  1. The fall in fish stocks in the Fraser wouldn’t have
    anything to do with the Sto’lo Indians, would it?
    Or has that been straightened out?

  2. Having worked both as a commercial fisherman and having worked for a period of time on a salmon farm I can say this: Based on what I have observed, there is no way in hell I will ever eat a farmed salmon.
    We used to troll wild salmon and keep them on ice for 10 days and they’d be just fine.
    An outfit that we used to deliver to in Tofino also processed farmed salmon, and they had to figure out a method for transporting the fish live to the processor because if they died taking them out of the pens, the few hours that it took them to get the fish from the farm to the processor resulted in the fish deteriorating to a point where they were no longer edible.
    They have feed manufacturers running around with strings of coloured chips like they have at the paint stores. “What colour would you like your fish? Pick one”, and the appropriate colour would be added to the feed. Otherwise the meat would be corpse-gray.
    Imagine 10-20 thousand fish in a net pen all crapping in the same place and swimming in the same faeces-laden water for their entire existences…no thank you.

  3. I’m amazed how I often I get to repeat the following sentiment these days:
    Soylent Green! Soylent Green!
    You are what you eat.
    Coming soon to a supermarket near you.

  4. You’ve oversimplified the problems, Kate. The floating fish farms make no economic sense…except to the few corporations doing the despoiling.
    All the effort and money poured into wild salmon restoration; spawning beds and stream restoration, huge cutbacks in sport fishing, even larger cutbacks in commercial fishing, salmon enhancemnt programs including hatcheries, public education, all for nought as these farmed salmon enterprises park themselves in front of salmon rivers/streams and foul the water with massive amounts of fish excrement, chemicals, and worst of all, sea lice.
    The sport fishing and recreational boating/tourist business is being devastated.
    http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/conservative
    Maybe I’m missing something in that definition but I failed to see any mention of blatant, blind greed.
    “Siting
    Under the Coastal Resource Interest Study, the provincial ministries of Environment and Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, toured the archipelago in 1988. Public meetings were held for fishermen, tourism operators and other local interest groups to mark where they would NOT like to see fish farms. Raincoast was asked what were essential to humpback whales, orca and other species of whales and dolphins. In 1989, the province produced a map dividing the archipelago waters into green (go for fish farming), yellow (go with caution) and red (where no applications for finfish farming would be accepted). These red zones highlighted where wild salmon schooled, prawns were most abundant, where whales summered and rock cod lived. However, within a year there were more salmon farms in red zones than in any other colour. In a breach of public trust, fishermen’s hard-won knowledge had been used by the salmon farmers to find the places their fish would survive the best.
    When queried the government gave three different answers as to why this had happened. First they said all interest groups had been contacted and differences settled sufficiently to allow the farms into the red zones. But none, including Raincoast, had been contacted. Next they said the red zones had been painted with such a “broad brush” that the little farms could be squeezed in without causing impact. But the farms were so large they covered entire red zones such as Sargeuant’s Pass and spilled out into the surrounding waters. Finally the Province admitted wherever fish farm applications pre-dated the red zones, they had been permitted. As a result, tax-dollars were wasted on meaningless “consultation” with local communities, and the archipelago harmed by the study because the richest waters had been highlighted in red for exploitation. During this process a memorandum of understanding passed down from Ottawa prohibited leases for residents to live on the coast in their floating houses.”
    http://www.raincoastresearch.org/salmon-farming.htm
    Most hunters and sportfishers are dedicated conservationists; where is this disdain of yours for preservation of wild species coming from?

  5. This sea lice thing is a bunch of crap. There are no more sea lice on salmon now that there were 60 years ago when I went fishing with my uncle.
    The most sea lice I have ever seen were on one run about 25 years ago on fish we caught around Sidney, and that only lasted for a couple of days. It’s BS.

  6. Daninvan, it’s the pattern of behavior I’m criticizing. There are lots of similar horror stories for all of the examples I included, arguments for why high intensity farming should end. Yet – people still like to eat.
    I just say the time has come to choose.

  8. When the hippie types have to forage for roots, to exist, somehow that will taste better.

  9. This in part is why the local food movement has had such success. Farmers markets and buy local markets are very popular and people are willing to pay a little more for food where the producer is known. Restaurants in particular are sourcing out local producers more and more. So many people do chose and chose to stay away from the “corporate farm”.

  10. The pacific salmon lice are the culprit, they occur naturally but the farms have increased theur numbers exponentially. THe lice are killing wild salmon that school near farms – at least that’s the theory.
    I would compensate farmers and shut them down for a few seasons and see if this has any positive effect. If it does, then farming will be restricted to natural or artificial bodies of water isolated from natural fish stocks. It is the natural resource that is the premium food source to be managed well not the farmed resource that can be done in tanks inland just as easily.

  11. We are so used to the offences of intrusive
    government that it is easy to forget that
    there is point to limited and judicious
    Government action.
    In fact governments can be useful as referees;
    except for warfare they are dangerous and
    destructive as players. Regulation to
    prevent salmon farms from fouling wild salmon
    would seem a sensible thing to do.

  12. Wow . . . things in BC are really going to hell . . . beautiful day, great weather and the best the ecotards cab do is get 1000 protesters ?
    Back in the day Dr. Fruit Fly would have had 10,000

  13. Which answers the question on , where do hippies go when no one else wants them

  14. Sea lice are not a problem for adult fish. The problem is the lice are attaching themselves to the wild fry as they leave the rivers and at that stage in their lives they’re simply too small to be able to cope with the parasites.

  15. Who cares, hate fish anyhow. And swine meat, who wants to eat meat with dead worms in it?
    Not to mention the beef that comes out of feed lots. Their livers are shot from the hot feed. They likely wouldn’t live another six months. Can you imagine the poison buildup in an animal with a liver that barely functions? And people are told it’s healthy. Not much wonder there is such a prevalence of auto-immune diseases.

  16. Trying to spoil my BBQ today ol hoss?
    Not going to work.

  17. I just say the time has come to choose.
    The facts have to be known in order to choose.
    For instance, doctors know that meat with more than 10% fat is not healthy, yet they recommend 30%. Why? Politics. It’s done for the same reason otherwise perfectly sensible people are on the AGW bandwagon.

  19. Trying to spoil my BBQ today ol hoss?
    It’s nothing to me if you live or die. At least, now, you know you’re eating dead worms. Well, hopefully they are dead 🙂

  20. Hear, hear, I agree with Kate.
    I’m sick and tired of all these busy bodies who think they can dictate to the rest of us what we should buy and or eat. Make your own choices, fine that’s good, but then let everybody else make their own choices as well.

  21. This is a very rural area dotted with some small villages. A farm family (father and son) wanted to build (and eventually did) a somewhat large hog finishing barn.
    From the villages sprang up the anti-hog coalition waving placards with Down With Ham! Down With Sausage! All worried about pollution and dropping property values, they demonstrated in the streets, when in fact their one concern was they didn’t want their so tender noses to get an occasional wiff of hog-poo.
    Time ticked on and the barn got built and the farm family donated a finished pig for a community fund raising event…and the anti-hog protestors were the ones that ate the carcass clean.
    One further point…the pollution that one of them was SO concerned about…well that guy didn’t even have a septic system…his own waste trickled down into a ditch.
    Hypocrites.

  22. Hoss, ever tried to put weight on an animal with a bad liver?
    Hot rations make ruminants sick. You can take that fact however you like, matters not to me.
    Ever wonder why there’s so much sickness in feedlots vs. on the grass?

  24. ol’ hoss Canada has some of the best pork in the world. I eat it medium rare and do not worry about trichinella. There is trichinosis in garbage hogs and bear meat but not in the inspected stuff. Cadillac pork chop 2 inches medium rare, live a little.

  25. Swine are scavengers (it’s why their manure smells so bad), that’s what they were made to do. They store the poisons in their fat. They’re like a vacuum cleaner. That’s a fact.
    If people eat all the poisons that pig ate over it’s lifetime, they’ll get sick and die. That’s fact.
    I don’t believe in evolution, but if I did, I would say it’s natural selection.

  27. Farmer Joe; it’s Agribusiness~ Government that’s doing the dictating, not average citizens. You’d know that if you didn’t have a closed mind on the subject. Why would you care if a food item was labeled ‘Certified Organic’, or ‘Free Range’? How does that limit your choices?
    Agribusiness~Government want those types of labeling banned. Now THAT’s dictating!
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Alimentarius#Controversy
    “Under the current rules, all meat offered for sale must be processed at centralized facilities despite the fact that this is not an option for many small producers, particularly in rural communities. Since the B.C. Liberal government outlawed farm gate sales many small farms have gone out of business.”
    http://www.okanaganfood.ca/index.php/community-voices/46-current-issues/84-farm-gate-sales-act-would-allow-purchase-of-animal-products-from-local-farms.html
    That would once again be the BC Liberal Gov’t pandering to Agribusiness. A very recent update suggests that Farm gate sales of meat and dairy products will once again be legal.
    Yes children, we’ll LET you buy a fresh killed chicken from Farmer Joe…
    By the way, that’s FEDERAL legislation, implemented by each Provincial Gov’t independently. It’s all about meeting US standards for export, not what the Canadian consumer wants or needs.

  28. Ol hoss, we all go sometime, and I will go happy and sated.
    Enjoy your organic, pesticide free, guilt free, taste free, raw tofu. Wait, did I just hear a soya bean cry out in pain?

  29. “At least, now, you know you’re eating dead worms. Well, hopefully they are dead :)”
    There is nothing wrong with worms, just protein. I do bass fishing in the summer and when the water is warm enough you do get them with worms. Proper cooking time solves the problem for that and I am sure any meat on the BBQ or other form of heat will be just as tasty.
    I do think that DaninVan @ 12:48 makes good points on several fronts. The smoke-n-mirror show of the back ground studies would indicate either a complete waste of money, a fragrant violations of it’s findings, political overtures of pandering or a combination of any all. There is room for commercial ocean farm fishing just not in areas that obviously should be left for native stocks. Why not land based pond farms? The Chinese have done this with carp for a long time but without effluent treatment. I would think with land based salmon farms there would be the added cost to effectively treat the return water through a waste disposal and treatment facility. The cost of doing business seems to be either passed onto the environment or it needs to be added by increased cost of the product. I favour the later.

  30. Quote from the Sun: “we’d catch a nice big Chinook with three or four lice on it. Now, if you can catch one, it’s loaded with lice and the fish is almost dead.”
    Hogwash. I live on Van. Island and am an avid fisherman – salt and fresh water. Whether it’s anomalies in weather or fish stocks, it’s always ‘our (humans) fault’.
    Each September I and a group if friends spend a week fishing a west coast river for Coho – between us we catch (and often release) scores of salmon and we find them in great shape, despite their passage between and around many farms.
    I eat both farmed and wild salmon and in my opinion, if you did a blind taste test, people would be unable to determine which was which.
    Morton et al have been trying to get ‘land based’ farming happening for years and as one who lost $25K investing in innovative closed containment, ocean based farming technology, I can tell you it just isn’t going to happen – unless you’re willing to pay $15/lb for your fish.
    The technical problems and the amount of electrical energy involved just make it prohibitive. Sure, you can do anything in an ‘environmentally friendly’ way – if cost is no object.
    On the east coast of Van. Island (Nanaimo area) the fishing had been very poor for the last 15 years, yet suddenly it’s improving with no discernable reason why. This was the best herring season in thirty years, salmon charters are doing much better and even the halibut are showing up again.
    Last fall, the pink salmon were in the local estuary in incredible numbers. You could stand in knee deep water and find them swimming all around your legs and splashing everywhere. And ‘odd numbered’ years are supposed to be the off year for pinks, so this season may be even better.
    As far as the ‘missing’ sockeye run, no one has a clue as to why, but because the numbers did not meet the predictions for one year, it must be due to some man made environmental disaster – yet to be determined of course.
    IMO, the Morton campaign is just another leaf in the whole leftists anti-corporate, pro-Gaiia cult.
    Jobs don’t matter and evidence that doesn’t fit the meme is simply ignored.

  31. So tell me,ol hoss.Do you sell your range fed beef??.Just wondering,as here in Alberta,all I can get is range fed beef.Oh wait.And my chickens come from the Hutterites.Are they into force-fed,chemical raising? Not from what I have seen.

  32. Agree with No Guff. I lived on Vancouver Island for 32 years and in the middle of fish farms and their controversy. I have consulted for fish farms helping them develop environmental management systems. Unlike the wild fishing industry, fish farms are science-based rather than welfare-based. I know Alexandra Morton and describe her as follows:
    Alexandra Morton has a degree in communications and for reasons known only to the BC Association of Professional Biologists, she was admitted to membership without even having written an exam. She is American and is paid by US corporate foundations to eliminate Fish Farms in BC. She has been exposed in court by fishery scientists for shoddy practises which, given her lack of scientific background, is par for the course. The msm are her PR lap-dogs.
    The science is not settled on whether or not Fish Farms, as presently managed represent any significant risk to the wild fishery from sea lice. Record returns of Pinks have been observed in areas and times when, according to the hysteria, they should have been wiped out.
    Land-based fish farms are an invitation for the industry to relocate near the markets (ie not on BC’s Coast) and only if all international suppliers went along (Chile will continue to fill any market gaps which we give them). IOW this is only an option if you want to continue de-industrializing the Coast.
    Other than fresh caught Sockeye, I prefer farmed Atlantics for their taste, texture and “good” oiliness. Atlantics are very poor competitors in the Pacific and when escape from pens, usually starve. Cases where they were alleged to have spawned in rivers usually turned out to be planted from individuals like Morton. Hundreds of thousands were transplanted to the Cowichan in the thirties and none returned. If they did well in the Pacific, they would have taken over decades ago.

  33. Geez ol hoss…if you are so concerned about worms maybe you should partake in one of those bowel cleansing ceremonies. You might be surprised at what parasites you have been a host to.

  34. One good thing about fish farms is that the real wild salmon is now relatively cheaper than it would be without them. I agree with Edward Teach, I won’t eat farmed salmon.

  35. Just how can you tell if fish are from farming operations? If we know, then we can choose.
    Just like gmo products, and irradiated potatoes, there are no labels.
    Except any potato, that has no sprouts, or eyes, you can be sure received the gamma ray treatment, preventing sprouting. Notice seed potatoes, have eyes, and are very much still alive.

  36. Yep—lefties are pay no heed to facts and data—they just pick a side—-always the same one.
    It’s like that myth about confinment hogs being full of anti-biotics.
    Anyone knowledgable knows that those big “bio-secure” signs at poultry and hog farms, indicate that isolation is practiced and anti-biotics are un-neccessary without a disease vector—visitors…
    I have seen the odd absessed liver in feed lot beef but it is the exception….bad livers = deadstock.

  37. “Just like gmo products, and irradiated potatoes, there are no labels.”
    That’s funny I see all sorts of food labeled “ORGANIC” all the time.

  39. “It’s like that myth about confinment hogs being full of anti-biotics.”
    Of course they’re not “full of anti-biotics”, you can’t win arguments by taking things to illogical extremes. However knowledgeable people know that pigs and poultry are given antibiotics in their feed to control the spread of infection in industrial meat operations.

  40. For those who don’t like the was food is farmed these days, I encourage them to get out there and find locally grown strawberries… in January.
    Or, try to buy bread made from organic wheat planted by a horse drawn seed drill in a field plowed by a horse drawn plow. If you pay the farmer (and all his helpers!) minimum wage, that loaf of bread is going to cost $15 bucks. No pesticides means half the wheat gets eaten by bugs, weeds and wildlife, and it takes probably ten times the manpower to do things with a horse team than with a big frickin’ tractor.
    Do y’all want to keep chickens on your apartment balcony because otherwise you don’t get any meat?

  41. Farmer Joe; you are definitely having trouble with this concept, Yes, some products are labeled “Organic”, some are labeled “Product of Canada”. Neither means dick!
    “2.7 Name and Address [B.01.007; 10, CPLA; 31, CPLR]
    The name and address of the responsible party by or for whom a prepackaged product is manufactured or produced, must be declared on any part of the food container except the bottom, in a minimum type height of 1.6 mm (1/16 inch) based on the lowercase letter “o”, in either French or English. The address must be complete enough for postal delivery within a reasonable delay.
    When a product packaged for sale to consumers has been wholly produced or manufactured outside of Canada, and the label carries the name and address of a Canadian dealer, the terms “imported by/importé par” or “imported for/importé pour” must precede this address, unless the geographic origin of the product is placed immediately adjacent to the Canadian name and address.”
    See that part there in para.2 “…wholly produced or manufactured outside of Canada…”
    Well see, that means that if it’s processed, or packaged PARTLY in Canada it’s good to go as ‘Product of Canada’. Charming use of the English language.
    Frankly, I eat a lot of suspect food; that’s my choice. That’s all anybody’s asking for…the freedom to choose. Agribusiness/CODEX want to dictate. This being a blog with a smaller Government bias, one would think that MORE regulations would be anathema to most SDA supporters(?)…

  42. Having just chowed down a mess of overgrown Nova Scotia crawdads or what you westerners call lobster, I am getting a chuckle out of all these free range orgasmically grown in your back yard commentators.
    If all Canadians would only eat what was produced within a 100km then by February we’d be a mean scurvy bunch.

  43. If all Canadians would only eat what was produced within a 100km then by February we’d be a mean scurvy bunch.
    Not to mention, caffeine deprived.

  45. Justthinkin,—“.And my chickens come from the Hutterites.Are they into force-fed,chemical raising? Not from what I have seen”— — There are many things that happen on a Hutterite colony that we don’t see.

  46. Fish that live in raw sewage – as they do in Victoria – might have problems . Tomatoes grown in Human waste taste like that waste; however I am certain that fish would not be affected in any way…
    Animals should be treated with respect, IMO. No calf should have to be born in a steaming manure pile; no cow, horse or pig or chicken should live their lives in misery. Canada should open up some new land for pasturing our beasts and for getting people out of small cells in cities. A revival of Homesteading would be excellent for our sissified population, IMO. Ownership makes people sensible.

  47. An earlier post talked about the herring coming back and salmon stocks improving. We’ve just had a grey whale come into Howe sound and then False Creek after herring. A few days ago 150 porpoises came into Howe Sound after herring. Methinks local salmon stocks around Vancouver will now start to improve.

  48. “Tomatoes grown in Human waste taste like that waste”, Ahh,another discerning palate. (:~)

  49. John Galt
    […..”It’s like that myth about confinment hogs being full of anti-biotics.”
    Of course they’re not “full of anti-biotics”, you can’t win arguments by taking things to illogical extremes. However knowledgeable people know that pigs and poultry are given antibiotics in their feed to control the spread of infection in industrial meat operations.]
    Illogical extremes???
    “knowledgeable people”???
    You mean those smoke nazi’s who can’t read…
    BIO-SECURE PREMISES
    NO ADMISSION
    Those knowledgeable people….????
    Who read an article in the Red Star????
    Behave yourself!!

  50. Lot of folks here pretty confident about the safety of the food they eat…(how soon they forget)
    http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Ontario-Minamata-disease
    http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2007/02/19/tuna-testing.html
    http://www.examiner.com/x-37835-Columbus-Family-Health-Examiner~y2010m5d9-Lettuce-implicated-in-E-coli-outbreak
    http://www.ecoliblog.com/articles/e-coli-recalls/
    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35391632/ns/health-food_safety/
    etc. etc…
    Please explain to me; how come the majority of commenters here, myself included, are all over the AGW corporate~Gov’t involvement (dare I say conspiracy?) yet when it comes to multinationals controlling food production, they get a free pass? Doesn’t that inconsistency trouble anyone?

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