Canada’s General Standards Board is looking to certify net cage-raised salmon as organic. Unfortunately, this process of “farming salmon” harms acquatic life: animals get caught in the nets, farm-raised salmon can escape and mate with wild salmon creating a problem with genetics, and the farm nets allow waste from the farm back out into the ocean, thus polluting the water.
According to Change.org, there are other issues, too:
Under the proposed guidelines, cage-raised salmon could still be labeled organic even if producers use synthetic pesticides in the fish’s water. These harmful pesticides would inevitably spread out into the ocean, threatening wild animals like lobsters. “Organic” farms would also be allowed to feed the salmon non-organic feed consisting of wild fish, which could deplete the ocean of wild fish populations, further exacerbating already-struggling wild fisheries. Non-organic wild feed can also contain toxins, which may pose a threat to consumers. Under traditional standards, none of these practices would be allowed on a certified organic farm — they fly in the face of the organic movement’s core principles.
