Genetically modified salmon developed by US company

There’s been more than a little disquiet in Bantry and Galway Bay in recent months at the prospect of new, organic salmon fish farms being allowed into the local waters.

So can you imagine the reaction in this country if genetically modified salmon were to be developed here?

The world’s first genetically modified food animal, a salmon that grows exponentially faster than a typical farmed salmon, has been developed by a US company 1,500 metres above sea level in a rainforest in the Panamanian province of Chiriqui.

The salmon is created by injecting growth genes from a Chinook salmon and a seal eel into an Atlantic salmon. These added genes made the fish produce growth hormone all year long, meaning the GM salmon grows twice as fast as farmed salmon — meaning it comes to market size in 18 months rather than 30.

The company behind the project, Aquabounty hope salmon is just the start, that it will be GM tilapia and trout next.

But environmental groups are mounting staunch opposition. This week, a public consultation by the FDA on sanctioning commercial production of GM fish came to an end and it’s believed there were at least 36,000 submissions, with most opposing the move.

GM Free Ireland founder Michael O’Callaghan describes the project as “very dangerous” as it “could endanger the Atlantic and Irish salmon industry” if the fish entered the water system.

“The problem is that accidents do happen and we know they happen and what if these fish escape as happens and end up in the Atlantic? We must also remember there is no market for such GM foods in Europe as European consumers don’t want them but the US are lobbying hard to get a trade agreement with Europe and would love to get GM in here,” he said.

But, a number of barriers which would have traditionally stopped the commercial production of the fish, appear to have been cleared by AquaBounty.

For instance, studies by the US Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) on the public health and environmental impact of such fish show they are no more dangerous to humans than conventional fish and that if they were to escape from their tanks into natural waters, they would likely not survive and so would not pose a risk to wild salmon.

US environmental groups such as the US Centre for Food Safety have questioned the narrow parameters of the environmental study but the director of the Aquatic Resources Authority of Panama (ARAP) Giovanni Lauri said: “There have been tests for many years and the last thing we heard from the FDA is that there is a very good probability that it is going to be approved in the near future.”