May 18, 2011

Speak up for wild salmon and against weak ‘organic’ farmed salmon standards

Antibiotics? Synthetic pesticides? Habitat destruction? Does this sound like organic food production to you?

You may remember hearing that Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) is developing organic aquaculture standards, standards that would allow shellfish and farmed fish, including net-cage farmed salmon, to be certified as ‘organic’. Bad news is the standards don’t even follow the most basic organic principles. Good news is there is still something that we can do about it.

The second draft of Canada’s proposed standards is open for public comment until May 31, 2011. Canadians, Americans, please help! To make it easy for you, we’ve prepared a statement that you can sign and fax back to us; we will collect the letters and send them on as a group. Click here to download the letter. We've also created a petition, sign it here and forward it to your contacts!

This will be our final opportunity to comment on these standards so please, please take a moment to share your thoughts with the Canadian General Standards Board!

You might ask why Americans should care about what Canada is doing with organic standards. Well, Canada and the U.S. currently have an equivalency agreement for organic standards and there is concern that Canadian aquaculture standards that set a low bar will put downward pressure on U.S. standards as they go through the final approval process with the USDA.

Canada’s second draft has many red flags for wild salmon and our marine ecosystems. For instance, the first draft required at least 70% of feed to be organic. Just for comparison sake, agricultural livestock requires 100% organic feed to be eligible for certification. So 70% was bad enough, but now, due to “insufficient supplies of organic fishmeal,” the current draft allows fishmeal to have absolutely no organic feed and still the farmed salmon could be ‘organic’. A farmed carnivorous fish like salmon could be fed totally NON-organic, possibly unsustainably-sourced wild fish and the Canadian government wants to put an organic label on it. This allows top-of-the-food-chain fish such as salmon or tuna to be called organic even when their production consumes much more wild fish from potentially overfished or depleted global forage fisheries than the amount of farmed fish produced.

Feed is just one of many issues that remain in these standards. Overall, weak standards threaten the integrity of the organic label and negate others’ efforts to produce truly organic products.

If you’d rather submit your own comments, you can review the second draft and submit an official comment form here. Visit our website for more information on what’s wrong with the proposed standards.

Using taste to change tastes

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard chefs claim that they have to offer an unsustainable seafood item because that’s what the customers want. Hogwash! Diners are putty in your hands!

And a new study backs me up (I love it when that happens). A study conducted by the Sea Around Us Project found that half of the tourists going to grab a meal on Sanibel Island (Southwestern Florida) would probably be easily persuaded to try a sustainable seafood option. Here are the numbers:

• 43% of tourists surveyed rarely or never knew which seafood they were going to order before dining at a restaurant.
• 45% of tourists surveyed responded that they were sometimes or usually influenced by server suggestions.
• 45.5% said that they were sometimes influenced by the seafood specials and an additional 14% were usually or always influenced by the seafood specials.

Given that professional chefs are more knowledgeable and more adventurous than your average home chef, you’re in a unique position to convince us -- with flavour -- to try other sustainable seafood options. Tempting diners with, for example, white anchovies marinated with garlic and parsley, parmesan custard fennel and romaine hearts in organic olive oil and lemon vinegar will probably work! (Inspiring menu option from Chef Frank Pabst and Blue Water Café’s 2011 Unsung Heroes Festival.)

Accolades for Wild Salmon Supporters

What an honour! Wild Salmon Supporters were recognized by the James Beard Foundation for excellence in their fields with nominations for one of their annual awards:

• Chef Dan Barber of New York City’s Blue Hill was nominated for outstanding restaurant
• Seattle’s Tom Douglas was nominated for outstanding restaurateur.
• Pat Kuleto, the San Francisco restaurateur behind several restaurants including Wild Salmon Supporters Farallon and Jardiniere, were nominated for outstanding restaurateur.

Check out the final winners list here!

And Vancouver restaurateurs (and Wild Salmon Supporters) were awarded the Seafood Champion Award! Chef Rob Clark of C Restaurant fame, and Harry Kambolis, CEO of Kambolis Restaurant Group , were awarded the 6^th Annual Seafood Champion Award at the Boston International Seafood Show this March. They were recognized with this special honour for their contributions to improving practices and awareness of sustainable seafood.

“As chefs, our job is not only about serving great tasting food, but encouraging our staff and our guests to learn how to get sustainably produced food to the table,” said Chef Clark. “We all need to play our small part, and choosing sustainable produced seafood is something we can all do as citizens of this planet.”

Congratulations, and thank you for the incredible work you do.

In case you missed it: two new reports on the sustainability of seafood

A few weeks ago we let you know about a new report, Better than the Rest? A Resource Guide to Farmed Salmon Certifications, which evaluates various eco-certifications and ‘organic’ standards for farmed salmon. The information is meant to help retailers and the food service industry navigate the murky waters. Spoiler alert: watch out for greenwash!

And speaking of reports, Greenpeace released the fifth edition of its report Carting Away the Oceans, which ranks 20 major grocery chains and retailers on their sustainable seafood policies, initiatives and transparency.