Farmed salmon sales booming
After two years of falling prices and declining sales, farmed salmon sales have become one of B.C.'s fastest growing export industries.
Farmed salmon exports have jumped 33 per cent over the past nine months, making it B.C.'s largest legal agricultural export.
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B.C. Salmon Farmers Association spokesperson Mary Ellen Walling says American consumers are eating 80 per cent of those exports.
"The demand for salmon is rising faster than we can supply it. We are moving fish down in to the U.S. as quickly as we can grow the fish."
Walling says B.C.'s biggest advantage over competitors in Chile and Norway is proximity to the American market. That means the product can be shipped fresh – not frozen.
"You know a day or two after being alive in sea pen, it's being sold into the U.S. market. It's a very fresh product."
Environmental questions remain
Despite its economic success, fish farming remains a controversial issue in coastal communities.
Opposition fisheries critic NDP MLA Robin Austin, who chairs the new Special Legislative Committee on Sustainable Aquaculture in B.C., says there are still significant problems to resolve.
"I live in a part of British Columbia were jobs are hard to come by. So any form of economic development is something that I need to look at," he said.
"At the same time, I don't want to go and start promoting an industry that is going to harm the environment just because we can get jobs there."
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Austin says any future export growth may depend on experimental closed containment systems that don't pollute local waters.