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In an article published in the New York Times October 8, investigative journalist Ian Urbina unveils the crime and abuse plaguing the aquaculture industry from feed production to processing and distribution. In the most extensive audit ever conducted on fish meal, one Canadian company, Cooke Aquaculture, is implicated in a supply chain riddled with crimes against humanity and the planet.
The article focuses on the production of fish meal and fish oil, required in the feed for farmed salmon, shrimp and other fish species popular in North America. It documents some of the illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing that has depleted forage fish stocks used to make the meal and oil, often at the expense of artisanal and subsistence fisheries in the global south. Nearly a third of these fish stocks are now overfished, according to the UN FAO and, “As a result, instead of relieving the pressure of overfishing, aquaculture is making the problem worse.”
The article documents extensive labour abuses, including slavery, forced labour, withholding medical treatment and worker deaths in the forage fishing fleet, in addition to illegal fishing. In fishmeal plants, forced labour, unsafe working conditions and environmental pollution were documented. The audit found “more than 250 seafood companies have had crimes or concerns documented within their supply chains”.
The audit traced fish meal and oil products associated with these crimes and concerns from specific vessels through processing to seafood products sold by labels such as Aqua Star through vendors including Walmart and distribution giant Sysco.
The article also documents many of the environmental harms caused by seafood farming and observes,
“In their marketing, seafood companies routinely claim that what they’re selling is ethical and sustainable. They tend to focus on the engineering marvel of the farms and ignore the crimes and costs located further upstream in their supply chains. Our goal was to reveal all of those costs in order to understand the dark underbelly of an industry that has become one of the world’s dominant food suppliers.”
The full NYT article says it is free to read if you create a log in.
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