<\/p>\n
By now you may have seen November\u2019s big biotech news: The Food and Drug Administration has approved the AquAdvantage salmon, a genetically modified Atlantic salmon that contains growth-promoting genes from Pacific chinook and an eel-like fish called the ocean pout. It\u2019s the first time a GM animal has ever been approved for human consumption, and it should hit grocery shelves in about two years.<\/p>\n
Concern has focused on the Frankenfish\u2019s potential to inflict environmental harm, including the possibility that the creatures could escape farms and outcompete or breed with wild fish. To reduce that threat, AquaBounty plans to grow its creations in terrestrial tanks in Panama and Canada, and will only rear sterile females. Sterilization isn\u2019t foolproof, and some activists point out, for instance, that AquaBounty\u2019s egg production facility is perilously close to an estuary. Nonetheless, the FDA\u2019s panel of experts concluded the technology \u201cwould not have a significant impact on the environment of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
That ruling angered Alaska\u2019s $6.4 billion commercial fishing industry, which fears that a new influx of farmed protein will degrade its bottom line. State politicians have fallen into step: Sen. Lisa Murkowski described herself as \u201clivid\u201d at the approval, sentiments echoed by Sen. Dan Sullivan and Rep. Don Young. Environmental activists are making common cause with the congressman who\u2019s tried to open the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge to drilling 11 times. Murkowski even threatened to block the appointment of the next FDA commissioner. But what will the AquAdvantage salmon actually mean for Alaska\u2019s fisheries?<\/p>\n
To understand how genetically modified salmon might shape the lives of fishermen, you have to travel back to 1980. That year, farmed salmon made up just 1 percent of the global market, while Alaskan wild represented more than 40 percent. As salmon farms came online in Norway, Chile, British Columbia and New Zealand throughout the 1980s, however, Alaska\u2019s fisheries saw their influence erode. By 2004, the 49th state was supplying just 15 percent of the world\u2019s salmon, and prices were a measly one-third of their former levels.<\/p>\n
Despite dire predictions, aquaculture did not spell doom for Alaska\u2019s fisheries. After bottoming out in 2002, wild salmon\u2019s value recovered in the mid-2000s \u2014 even as farming captured an ever greater share of the market. These days, farmed salmon is at 70 percent and climbing.<\/p>\n
How could that be?<\/p>\n
First, fishermen got shrewd about marketing, branding \u201cAlaskan wild salmon\u201d as a healthful, natural alternative to farmed fish. And they learned to improve their product\u2019s quality, for instance by storing their catch in refrigerated seawater that kept it fresher longer. But they also got a vital assist from their hated competitors \u2014 salmon farmers. By seeking out novel markets in countries like Brazil and China in the \u201980s and \u201990s, aquaculturists had acclimated a new class of consumers to the unfamiliar pink-fleshed fish. Diners worldwide suddenly craved salmon, and prices for wild fish climbed with surging international demand. The rising tide of aquaculture had lifted the boats of Alaskan fishermen.<\/p>\n
History, then, suggests that a new source of farmed fish might not be a complete catastrophe for fishermen. Gunnar Knapp, an economist at the University of Alaska Anchorage, speculates that if AquaBounty somehow made salmon as cheap as chicken, it could price out wild fish \u2014 or stimulate another round of beneficial demand expansion. \u201cYou could end up with a new opportunity to carve out a distinct niche,\u201d Knapp speculates.<\/p>\n
Still, you can\u2019t blame Alaskans for being anxious. Whereas farmers can control exactly how many fish they take to market (and when, and where), fishermen are subject to the whims of Mother Nature. In 2015, for instance, the sockeye run in Alaska\u2019s Bristol Bay exceeded 50 million fish, one of the strongest in history. The bounty proved a market-flooding disaster for fishermen, who saw prices plummet to just 50 cents a pound. (In 2014, they received around $1.20.) Poor exchange rates and a Russian seafood embargo haven\u2019t helped, either.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still have a lot of product left over from last year,\u201d laments Verner Wilson, a commercial fisherman from Dillingham, Alaska. \u201cWith where prices are right now, people have to work twice as hard for half the pay.\u201d<\/p>\n
With his industry already struggling, Wilson fears that GM salmon will depress prices even further. He\u2019s petitioning the FDA to rescind its approval. Whether or not the feds budge, pressure from fishermen and anti-GMO activists has already dented AquaBounty\u2019s market: Stores including Costco and Whole Foods have announced that they don\u2019t plan to sell Frankenfish.<\/p>\n
Even so, it\u2019s worth asking how much American markets really matter. Though the U.S. is indeed the world\u2019s largest farmed salmon consumer, the silvery fish is a global commodity, and no single agency nor buyer sets the price. Remember what happened with aquaculture: Foreign farmed salmon, grown in Chile and Norway for export to Japan, still managed to initially crater prices for Alaskan wild, even though the state banned salmon aquaculture in its waters. Meanwhile, more than half the value of Bristol Bay\u2019s fisheries come from Japan, the United Kingdom, Canada, and a host of other countries. (The Japanese prefer frozen Alaskan filets, while the Brits would rather eat their salmon out of cans.) And to no one\u2019s surprise, AquaBounty is actively exploring foreign buyers.<\/p>\n
Yet the company might find itself swimming upstream. The European Union has a notorious distaste for genetic tinkering: Over half the E.U. opted out of growing genetically modified crops this fall, and some countries, like France, have severe restrictions on the sale, marketing and labeling of GMOs. But while it\u2019s hard to imagine many European nations embracing AquAdvantage salmon anytime soon, the FDA\u2019s seal of approval could convince hesitant countries elsewhere to issue their own green lights. It may also give other aspiring genetic modifiers the confidence to proceed with research and development. \u201cThere\u2019s been a feeling that many companies have been waiting to see if the US will approve GM salmon before going ahead themselves,\u201d Helen Sang, a genetic researcher at the University of Edinburgh, told the BBC.<\/p>\n
Add it all up, says Knapp, and \u201cthe effects won\u2019t be immediate, they won\u2019t be simple, and they won\u2019t necessarily be entirely bad.\u201d Ultimately, reconnecting American consumers with their bountiful wild seafood resources will accomplish more for commercial fishermen than any FDA action. As the author Paul Greenberg reported in American Catch, the United States imports 91 percent of the seafood we eat \u2014 and exports a full third of the fish we catch. That\u2019s far more problematic than the approval of a single genetically engineered fish. \u201cWe need to rely less on these foreign markets,\u201d says Kelly Harrell, executive director of the Alaska Marine Conservation Council, \u201cand use some creativity and innovation in getting wild Alaskan salmon into our own communities.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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