The New Fish, a book by Patagonia

What is the environmental price to be paid for GMO salmon? What is really behind the salmon industry? The New Fish is a thorough investigation that answers these and many other questions.

The salmon industry in recent years has known how to make us believe that this once wild fish, now first among aquaculture farmed animals, is the genuine substitute for meat that we need on our tables. But the reality is very different. The two Norwegian journalists Simen Sætre and Kjetil Østli, after more than five years of investigation, seek to shed light on the salmon industry. As explained in The New Fish by
Patagonia
, this food, formerly considered among the healthiest, has become a real form of poisoning for the planet and for humans.

Origins

The authors explain how, in the early 1970s, a group of scientists studied how to produce more food for the world’s growing population.
By sampling salmon genes from 41 Norwegian and Swedish rivers, they designed a new salmon that would be fatter and grow faster. It was considered an extraordinary innovation at the time and became the centerpiece of this new industry that spread throughout the world.

The results

The explosion of the salmon market has come at a high cost to the environment and wild salmon. The results of Sætre and Østli’s investigation reveal disastrous consequences, from lice to escapes, from concentrating sea pen waste in the fjords through which wild salmon swim to the fact that salmon farming causes a net reduction in protein harvested in the ocean. The authors hope that with more exposure and understanding, we will be able to reform this abominable industry.

The book can be purchased at www.patagoniaprovisions.com