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Latin America Reckons With a Fish-Farming Boom

Latin America Reckons With a Fish-Farming Boom

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- When he failed to ignite a continental uprising against South America’s 19th-century colonial masters, Simon Bolivar was crestfallen. “He who serves the revolution plows the seas,” he despaired. Happily, Bolivar got it backward.

From the Yucatan Peninsula to the Strait of Magellan, aquaculture is revolutionizing food production. Plowing the oceans and inland waters, Latin America and the Caribbean expanded more than five-fold their output of captive finfish, crustaceans and mollusks and, from 1995 to 2016, nearly doubled the regional share of global aquaculture. Chilean fish farms now supply about 30% of the world’s salmon and earn the country more revenue than any other export except minerals. Ecuador is the world’s fifth largest supplier of marine crustaceans, Mexico ranks seventh, and Peru’s fisheries are poised to export their aquaculture technology. That makes Central and South America the fastest growing flank of the world’s fastest growing food industry, a global haul now worth $243 billion a year, and on track to double output by 2030.

For a region plagued by stop-and-go growth, aquaculture is a boon.

But problems have followed plenty. The blue revolution may not be as damaging to the environment as the one that reinvented global agriculture (farmed fish consume far less feed and energy than chickens, pigs or cattle do), but algae blooms, pests and pathogens, and overuse of antibiotics do a lot of dirty work. Chile repeatedly has seen huge schools of farmed fish break out of pens into the open ocean, where they threaten to overrun wild species and spread new diseases.

Another kind of biological Pandora’s Box is opened when wild species are transferred from one marine habitat to captivity in another. Fast breeding Atlantic salmon fall prey to sea lice in Pacific fish farms, costing Chile’s breeders alone $350 million a year.

The good news is that society is pushing back. Environmental and food safety activists are increasingly calling out the industry and regulators for unsafe practices, and are demanding legal action. Consider “Artifishal,” a new documentary by the outdoor sporting-gear label Patagonia, now showing at film festivals. The movie casts salmon farmers as a corporate cabal bent on fouling the oceans and spreading Frankenfish for private gain.

The specter of salmageddon might be exaggerated. In fact, fish farming is closely watched and highly regulated; producers pay stiff penalties for bad practices. And they must abide by so many import restrictions, “you need a decoder ring to read them,” World Wildlife Fund aquaculture program director Aaron McNevin told me. Yet aquaculture ignores the civic revolt at its own peril. Unless Big Fish ensures it can ramp up production without trashing the seas, depleting biodiversity and loosing drug-resistant bacteria, its roaring industry will be at risk.

Consider the trials of Chile’s Nova Austral, a Patagonian fishery that was caught concealing spiking mortality rates on its salmon farms. By doctoring records, it gamed consumers, who pay a premium for healthy produce from reliable stewards. Following the scandal, Nova Austral sidelined its chief executive, and the independent Aquaculture Stewardship Council withdrew the company’s farm certificate.

One reason that fish farms have created problems is that production has often raced ahead of aquaculture science and food safety standards. Producers have, for example, responded to spreading aquatic contagions with antibiotic overuse, which can give rise to drug-resistant bacteria. And regulators have done too little to monitor the situation. Chilean authorities have cleared 37 different generic or branded antibiotics for treating farmed salmon, without bothering to say what diseases these drugs can treat or how effective they are. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, in contrast, allows just four antibiotics for aquaculture, each one targeted for specific pathogens.

Some producers, recognizing that one company’s troubles can have a spatter effect across the industry, are working to clear aquaculture’s reputation. Following the Nova Austral scandal, fisheries in Magallanes Province, in southern Chile, invited lawmakers and public officials to tour their plants, and are weighing a new code of corporate responsibility.

Such initiatives point to shifting sensibilities. “We see a combination of folks who know the industry, want to do things the right way, and are eager to use the best technology,” McNevin said. “Those who don’t want transparency will be shaken out of the marketplace.”

Collective awareness cannot substitute for good governance. Yet it may be one good way to keep the biggest thing in global food from becoming just another Latin American revolution gone bad.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mary Duenwald at mduenwald@bloomberg.net

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Mac Margolis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Latin and South America. He was a reporter for Newsweek and is the author of “The Last New World: The Conquest of the Amazon Frontier.”

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.