Canadian firms take farms shutdown to court
MOWI and Cermaq are taking the Canadian government to court over its decision to force the closure of salmon farms in the Discovery Islands region of British Columbia.
Mowi’s subsidiary, Mowi Canada West, has applied to the Federal Court of Canada inVancouver for judicial review of the decisions made by Bernadette Jordan, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, in December 2020 regarding licenses for salmon farms in the Discovery Islands area. Mowi is asking the courts to find the decisions unreasonable and to set them aside.
Jordan’s decision prohibits the issuance of new or replacement aquaculture licences for aquaculture sites and prohibit any fish being transferred into aquaculture sites within the Discovery Islands area.They are part of a policy decision by the minister to end net pen salmon farming in the Discovery Islands by June 30, 2022.
The company said: “Approximately 13-15 Mowi farms are impacted.The exact number is not known as the minister has not provided a precise listing of the affected farms, nor any details or plans beyond her initial announcement.
“The decisions and related timelines and lack of precision are unreasonable, and threaten the viability of all Mowi’s operations in British Columbia.”
Cermaq, which also operates net pen farms in the area, has also applied for a judicial review of the decision.The company said: “Part of the DFO [Department of Fisheries and Oceans] decision was that Cermaq would not be able to stock our sites in the Discovery Islands region with fish, although these sites would be licensed until 2022.This decision will have immediate and detrimental effects. Before those effects are felt by Cermaq, its employees, suppliers, and customers, Cermaq believes that time for engagement should be provided, which means allowing the stocking of the sites in this interim period.”
The company points out that its three farms in the Discovery Islands region account for 20% of its Canadian operations, and also that plans to stock two of the sites are well under way already.The government’s decision therefore leaves those fish “in limbo”, Cermaq added.
Cermaq has been careful to point out that its legal challenge applies to the DFO decision and stressed: “We respect the opinions and the rights of the First Nations in the Discovery Islands region… Cermaq’s goal is to allow time for engagement with the local First Nations to examine opportunities to achieve mutually beneficial agreements.”
MUCH of the $200bn Americans used to spend in restaurants each year is now being transferred to the nation’s kitchens, new data from the Norwegian Seafood Council suggests.The trend appears to have favoured whitefish like cod and haddock, at the expense of salmon, although frozen salmon sales have held up.
Anne-Kristine Øen, the Seafood Council’s US envoy, said sales of Norwegian seafood increased by 3% to NOK 7bn in 2020, the first year of the pandemic.
Volumes rose by 7% to 85,000 tonnes. Sales were down by 4% in volume, but the value remained the same at around NOK 5bn.
The big winners were the country’s whitefish exporters. Sales of cod to the United States rose by 20% in volume and 22% in value, while haddock was up by 11% in volume and 16% in value.
So why this movement? Salmon is found on the menus of most restaurants in one form or another, but coronavirus has severely curtailed the hospitality business.
Øen explains: “It has been a tough year for the hotel and restaurant segment with 200,000 restaurants [in the US] having to close their doors due to the pandemic.
“This also means that US $200bn in food money has shifted, from the restaurant sector to the grocery sector.
“When Americans cannot get seafood served outside, they have to cook it themselves at home.At the same time as there has been a brutal decline for the hotel and restaurant segment, we have seen a nice increase in sales of seafood in the grocery trade through 2020.”
She adds:“When more food is prepared at home, it has also led to a change in products that are sold. For both salmon and cod, there has been a sharp increase in frozen fillets, while sales of whole fresh fish have declined.”
Øen also expects restaurants to continue to endure a tough time until the outbreak in the US is brought under control.The Seafood Council plans to focus on the US market with a special webcast on 8 March.