Fish farmers see opportunities as DFO lifts freeze on licences

Lifting a moratorium on new fish-farm applications on British Columbia’s coast won’t lead to “a free- forall” of new requests, according to an industry spokeswoman.

Ottawa put applications on hold in 2011 while the Cohen Commission investigated the state of the Pacific salmon fishery. However, Fisheries Minister Gail Shea quietly lifted the freeze several months ago.

“It doesn’t signify a big free- for- all or anything,” said Colleen Dane, spokeswoman for the B. C. Salmon Farmers Association, adding that while all its member companies are probably looking for opportunities to expand, “but all of that comes slowly and happens piece by piece.”

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has received and is reviewing 11 fish farm applications, although only two are for new farms, while nine are for amendments to existing licences, according to DFO spokeswoman Kirsten Ruecker.

Currently 125 operations are licensed in B. C. with a total allowed peak capacity of 280,000 tonnes of fish ( which refers to the amount of salmon allowed in the water), Ruecker said in an email. The 11 applications under consideration would increase peak production by 16,640 tonnes.

Ruecker added that generally, not all licensed sites are in production at the same time.

According to the B. C. Salmon Farmers Association, the industry operates on 70 to 80 farm sites and industry statistics show that the annual harvest has ranged between 73,000 and 83,000 tonnes of fish.

Dane said that while the Cohen Commission was underway, the industry’s focus was on providing information for its deliberations and that 2013 “marked a kind of getting back to a focus on moving forward.”

She added that companies undertake a considerable amount of investigation of potential sites before making an application and seek to put elements in place such as cooperation agreements with First Nations as part of proposals.

That said, Dane added that there is an expanding market for farmed salmon and B. C. farmers produce “a great product” that is in demand, so in looking at the industry’s existing operations “we think there is potential to do more.”

For 2012, the last available year statistics are available, salmon farmers produced 73,700 tonnes of fish, an 11- per- cent decrease from 2011, which had a wholesale value of $ 434 million, the B. C. Ministry of Agriculture reported in a document on the province’s seafood industry.

Farmed production dwarfed the wild salmon fishery, which recorded a poor harvest year in 2012 with just 9,000 tonnes harvested ( down 56 per cent from 2011), but a wholesale value of $ 146 million.