GM Salmon Growing in Rural Indiana
Genetically Modified Salmon 062519
The first genetically engineered salmon are set to go on sale in the U.S. next year and for the landlocked fish farms producing them, it could mean big business.
Inside a sprawling complex in rural Indiana, thousands of salmon eggs genetically modified to grow faster than normal are hatching into tiny fish. The eggs were shipped to the U.S. from AquaBounty's Canadian location last month after clearing final regulatory hurdles.
The fish will grow to full size in eighteen months, roughly twice as fast as regular salmon. The facility manager, Pete Bowyer, says this is a high tech plant and AquaBounty's salmon will be produced more efficiently. The fish growing to about 10 pounds before being ready for harvest.
"The early stages of production here are very, very similar to the rest of Atlantic salmon production at the moment," says Bowyer. "The fish are reared in tanks and in hatcheries but where it starts to be different is that we take the fish at a time when they would usually be transferred into sea cages and we continue the process in tanks with systems that clean and reuse the water."
David Willer, researcher, Aquatic Ecology, University of Cambridge and Cambridge Conservation Initiative says the faster growth rate is really about genetic efficiency.
"What this effectively does is it allows the salmon to grow year round," says Willer. "So [they grow] in the winter and the autumn as well as the spring and summer which means instead of taking three years to reach full size the salmon take 18 months."
There has been plenty of debate and protests around the fish. Greg Jaffe, Center for Science in the Public Interest says these genetically engineered fish have seen a lot of studies.
"FDA has reviewed this safety data around genetically engineered salmon and determined that there is no food safety or nutritional difference between that salmon and a normal Atlantic salmon that was farm raised that you'd get in the supermarket today," says Jaffe.
AquaBounty says it hasn't yet sold any fish in the U.S. but it says its salmon may first end up in restaurants or university cafeterias.
