Tuesday 3 October 2017

DFO/BCNDP/GREENS Subsidize Fish Farms $9M to $12M Each - Licence Subsidy



I was asked about Norway's licencing of in-ocean fish farms. They ceased to do this in 2014. Here is what I said to the query:

What they [Norway] did was end the auctioning off of in-ocean licences in 2014 Norway was fed up with the sewage and other problems. This article says, at the bottom, 66 million Kroner. Multiply it by the exchange rate .16 and you get $10.56 million: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-construction/hurricanes-harvey-irma-lift-u-s-factory-activity-index-to-13-year-high-idUSKCN1C71RJ. 

You will find the $9- to $12-million figure I use in other articles. 80 million Kroner is $12.8M, for instance. The BC licence cost, by comparison, is a pitiful $5,000 or .04% of the $12M figure. Hence the reason we are subsidizing fish farms to trash our oceans.

You would have to check whether getting a licence [in Norway] is tied to a lease of a particular spot. I don’t think it is. The reason for the high price is that fish farms are a licence to print money, and so, there has been a long-term speculative market, including people who had no intention of farming, just resold the licences. Kjersti Sandvik’s book, Under the Surface, covers this issue in Norway.

The licences Norway gives out for on-land are free, and thus a $9 - $12-Million subsidy. Note that the original licences are still in the water.

Norway does issue some in-ocean licences for concepts that reduce environmental damage, the egg by Marine Harvest, for instance: https://www.google.ca/search?q=Marine+Harvest+-+egg+concept+-+artist+rendering&dcr=0&tbm=isch&imgil=zEYXtZ5QezA_kM%253A%253B4IIbLOaEF_EL2M%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Faquaculturenorthamerica.com%25252Fresearch%25252Fmarine-harvest-tests-closed-egg-shaped-fish-pens%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=zEYXtZ5QezA_kM%253A%252C4IIbLOaEF_EL2M%252C_&usg=__Z4pAEdxo9BPUjuR499EPgI3QEw0%3D&biw=957&bih=419&ved=0ahUKEwjVku_hwtLWAhVP0WMKHbYmD3kQyjcINQ&ei=H3_SWZWHFM-ijwO2zbzIBw#imgdii=DcHvMZQow-i0MM:&imgrc=zEYXtZ5QezA_kM:. Note that the purpose is to save salmon from lice, and there are two pipes off the bottom, one for water in, and the other would have to be for water/sewage/feed flowing out, but that is something MH does not talk about.

Note that the industry is trying now to get off shore, open ocean licences, for much larger farms, presumably to keep them from public scrutiny and thus release far more sewage. See this for Norway and Japan: Offshore Mega Sewage - Norway, Japan, offshore fish farms:  http://www.seafoodnews.com/Story/1077672/Norway%2DJapan%2DBegin%2DOffshore%2DSalmon%2DFarming.

As for fish in a usual size farm, that would be 600,000 to 1,000,000, but you would have to do some research to get a link.

D

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