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Mar 14, 2017

Replacing farms with fish farms: The odd solution to both hunger and climate change

Imagine a world where polluting, resource-intensive cow, pig, and chicken farms are replaced with giant tanks of fast-growing salmon. It might be a strange view of agriculture, but a potential huge shift in how we feed the planet. It may be the dead of winter, and the nation’s capitol city may not be coastal, but this month marks the start of a distinct version of salmon season in and around Washington, D.C. Restaurants ranging from the iconic Chart House in Alexandria and Annapolis to all seven of critically-acclaimed Top Chef contestant Bryan Voltaggio’s eateries will be offering preparations of a different kind of locally-sourced fish on their menus. Meanwhile, the grocery store Wegmans plans to roll out large ice tables adorned with signage that plays up the nearby heritage. “We’ll make them kind of an event,” says company seafood manager Steve Philips. “They almost always sell out.” The catch: All of these fish will be coming from 70 miles inland of the capital, from a company called Spring Hill. The fish will be harvested from a land-based “recirculating aquaculture system,” the industry term for a gigantic eco-friendly, land-based fish tank located at the Conservation Fund’s Freshwater Institute in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Read the article. Editor's note:  AquaBounty has promoted the benefits of land-based fish farming that this article mentions, and has done so for years. It is gratifying to finally see Fast Company publish such an article, even though we are not mentioned as an innovator in this field.