Today's special will be 'super salmon'

Catherine Boyle
June 16, 2010
The London Times

The first genetically modified animal produced for human consumption could be served up at family mealtimes within two years.

An AIM-listed company is inching closer to winning approval from the US Food and Drug Administration for its “super salmon”, which reach adult size in half the time it takes normal salmon to develop.

If the transgenic salmon are approved in the United States, the company will seek approval in the European Union.

Yesterday, AquaBounty, based in Massachusetts, said that it had received two letters from the FDA’s Centre for Veterinary Medicine confirming that five of the seven sections of its application to market AquAdvantage Salmon — eggs that hatch into fast-growing salmon — had been reviewed.

The company has devised a method of placing a gene from Chinook salmon into the eggs of Atlantic salmon — the salmon most commonly farmed. One year after the eggs hatch, the salmon reach an average weight of 1,340 grams, compared with 663 grams for ordinary Atlantic salmon. The company claims that the new fish could be cheaper to farm, as it will eat less over the course of its lifetime. A cheaper way of farming salmon could be welcomed by the industry, which is under pressure to produce more salmon as demand for the fish grows.

There has been much controversy about farmed Atlantic salmon escaping from their pens and disrupting the ecosystem. In March, an escape from a Scottish salmon farm on Loch Lochy led to worries about the long-term survival of wild Atlantic salmon stocks if their habitat was flooded with food rivals.

Pete Riley, campaign director of GM Freeze, an umbrella group for organisations concerned about GM food, said: “We are extremely concerned about the potential for these fish to escape. The past record of the fishing industry in preventing escapes is very poor. If these fish are growing at twice the rate they’re supposed to be, there may be other things wrong with them.”

AquaBounty insists that it will produce only sterile female fish, to minimise the risk of the fish interbreeding to create a new strain, which could upset delicate ecosystems at sea.

The company hopes that its eggs will be approved in time for this year’s breeding season, meaning that the first transgenic salmon could be on plates by 2012. As GM food does not have to be labelled, the consumer would not know if they were eating one of these fish.

Ron Stotish, chief executive of AquaBounty, said: “In every measurement and every respect, these fish are identical to Atlantic salmon.”

A similar product for sea trout is next on the company’s list. It has been trying to get its salmon approved for more than a decade and made a loss of $4.8 million in 2009 as it awaited the FDA’s decision.

Source: The London Times