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Friday, May 15, 2009

From the most contentious panel of the weekend, which focused on the the state of aquaculture:

Kona Blue Water Farms' Neil Sims: 'We really have a seafood crisis...it's plunder and pillage out there.'
Dan McGovern, from Sustainable Food News: Obama admin putting $6 million into new aquaculture program off the coasts.
Sims: Good aquaculture's like real estate - location, location, location. Deep is good, with strong currents so the eco system is simulated.
Ruby Berry, who lives near 134 salmon farms in British Colombia: After 20 years of open net technologies, still seeing major escapes.
Berry: When these (usually) Atlantic salmon escape, don't interbreed with Pacific salmon, but compete. Considered invasive in Alaska.
McGovern: 'Feed, escapes, effect on environment' - namely, waste - are the biggest problems with aquaculture.
Sims: Pushing engineering envelope [with pens], so we want to keep genetics inside pen same as outside by starting with wild stock.
From a top tweepsie: Kona Kampachi trying to popularize new term "mariculture," seeing that aquaculture tainted by land-based ops?
Aquarium's Pete Bridson: 'Science is usually a couple of years behind what's happening on the ground in so many countries.'
Cooke Aquaculture's Nell Halse: using fishery byproduct and non-fish feed make dubious practice of farming carnivorous fish – who need to eat fish - more palatable. (But many are skeptical: One wrote, “Nell Halse, Cooke Aquaculture claims 1:1 feed-to-fish conversion in ratio in their farmed salmon...really?” Another said, “Will these farmed fish with creative/more sustainable diets still taste like...fish?”)
Charles Clover, author, End of Line (in the audience): 'There's a degree of disinformation from aquaculture community on how much fish needed to feed farms…You’ve been lying to us for years!”

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