Radical Noesis - Thinking outside the box

One would think that just as folks wise up to the health problems of farm-raised fish -particularly salmon- and the increasing public concerns of farmed salmons threat to wild salmon, that a proposal to set up massive fish farms in the ocean seems just a bit behind the curve. According to Ken Weiss at the LA Times, Bush thought this was a great idea to meet "America's growing appetite for seafood," and to help out those little fish farmers by creating an entrepreneurial opportunity.

Right! If this isn't a corporate handout I'll eat my hat - oh yeah I don't wear hats. Anyway, obviously open ocean fish farming raises a ton of issues. The environmental ones of competition with remaining wild stocks. The likelihood that the farmed fish will likely be of a single genetic strain and possibly, modified; The heavy use of antibiotics and chemicals with farmed fish - and how that might impact the sealife; who (sealife wise) is likely to be displaced or eliminated; and the longer term threat - privatization of the oceans.

Say what? Yes indeed, who will own those farms in the oceans? According to the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy posted at Environmental Media Services:

"The aquaculture industry is working along with U.S. regulatory agencies to privatize parts of the ocean on behalf of corporate fish farming interests, according to a new report by a coalition of consumer and environmental groups."

Essentially, the Bush fish farming policy takes "property" (the oceans off the US coast) which is held as a public trust and turns it over for the exclusive use of private corporations. Of course, this is hardly new terrain as public lands have consistently been placed in private/corporate control. There is concern that ocean fish farming is a "slippery slope" for other private claims on public waters for drilling, mining, or even production. Here is a link to the executive summary of the full report