The launch in Trondheim, Norway, last month of the Global Salmon Initiative (GSI) marks a significant step forward for the world’s major salmon farming companies; one that it hopes will lead to improved industry perception by NGOs, the media and consumers.
This new organization, which currently comprises 15 member companies representing more than 70 percent of the global salmon industry, aims to address industry standards, biosecurity and feed sourcing, and to make these processes transparent.
According to Alfonso Marquéz de la Plata, chair of the GSI standards committee and CEO of Empresas AquaChile, the initiative started in 2011, following a meeting called by Novartis Animal Health, which gathered CEOs from four of the big salmon companies to discuss significant issues facing the industry.
“They wanted to talk about the big issues, things for which only coordinated action could achieve results,” Marquéz de la Plata said.
“We went public a month ago, but in the intervening two years, we have been working intensively with people in many different companies. For instance, all the CEOs involved attend a phone conference every month and meet face to face every quarter, to check that we are on track. We have set ourselves up to be a dynamic organisation, not one in name only. And by collaborating and improving our working practices and image, we want to show the world that the industry is growing up,” explained Marquéz de la Plata.
“Ours is an important industry, which produced more than 1.6 million metric tons (MT) of farmed salmon in 2011, the last year for which figures are available. With global population predicted to reach nine billion by 2050 and over 84 percent of the world’s fisheries either depleted, over or fully exploited, there is a pressing need to increase aquaculture production to meet future demand for protein,” he said.
“It makes sense to join together because we are all working on the same issues and fighting the same battles and we don’t always get it right all the time. By collaborating on non-competitive issues, pooling our resources, sharing knowledge and research, and showing the world that we are making a huge effort to be environmentally responsible and sustainable, we intend that salmon farming will become respected rather than vilified,” stated Marquéz de la Plata.
Standards are his area of responsibility and following much discussion and research, GSI adopted the new Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) global standards for salmon farming.
“All the companies in GSI work to one or more standards already, but we agreed that ASC offered the best route to achieving a reduction in the key environmental and social impacts of salmon aquaculture, as well as a consumer logo,” Marquéz de la Plata said.
Farms will have to meet 140 different criteria, to disclose an unprecedented amount of farm-level data, participate in area-based management plans to reduce pathogenic and parasitic risks to wild and farmed fish, monitor sea lice levels, and move towards a zero escape regime.
“Of great importance is the transparency of the process, which should give consumers a new confidence in our product,” said Marquéz de la Plata.
Chris Ninnes, CEO of ASC is excited by this new development, which he said is without precedent in the aquaculture field, but has parallels with the U.S. tuna initiative embarked upon by the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF), which had similar ambitions to turn the tuna industry around.
“It took us a long time to get the salmon standard right and in it we have set some challenging targets, and asked some of the hardest questions, but these were needed to ensure it was robust. The standard was developed with industry for industry, and is set at a level where only 15 percent of companies could currently meet its best practice requirements. This means there is a lot of work to do before all the farms can be independently certified to ASC standard, and the firm commitment of GSI members to achieve this is a vital factor in making it happen,” explained Ninnes.
“The world is watching us now but with help from organization such as [Food and Agriculture Organization] and [World Wildlife Fund], we are confident we can make the necessary improvements and turn global salmon farming into a sustainable industry to be proud of,” stated Marquéz de la Plata.
