Scots salmon farming jobs on the line
[This is the line being pushed hard here... loss of jobs, the pollution problems have been a well known problem for some time now. The government and media are ignoring the fact that many tens of thousand of jobs, a way of life, has been lost from overfishing Britains coastal waters. The stupidity continues... Facts are the farms currently used are unhealthy for the fish and the fish taste like chit... pb]
news.scotsman.com
JAMES REYNOLDS ENVIRONMENT CORRESPONDENT
THE crisis surrounding the Scottish salmon-farming industry has deepened following revelations that thousands of jobs could be lost in the wake of controversial research from the United States which sparked a salmon safety scare last week.
Banks are refusing to finance the industry, believing it is a bad risk, and the Scottish Executive has been forced to underwrite £100 million of loans to keep it afloat and safeguard jobs.
Following the publication of the research in the journal Science last week, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) immediately came to the aid of the Scottish salmon farming industry, claiming that the benefits of eating the oily fish far outweighed the dangers.
However, it has also emerged the FSA was warned by UK government scientists last year that those who followed its advice to eat one portion of salmon a week would breach the safety limit for toxic chemicals.
In what is likely to amount to the most damaging period in the industry’s 30-year history, it was also revealed at the weekend that Skerries Salmon, the oldest fish farm in Shetland and a community co-operative, went in to receivership - the third Shetland fish farm to do so in the past month.
It prompted Sandy Clueness, the convener of the local council, to predict that the industry in Shetland will shrink by 50 per cent in the next few years.
The British Retail Consortium has also issued a warning that it expects salmon sales to fall following the reports, although the major supermarket chains claimed not to have experienced a drop this weekend.
Experts believe that other Scottish salmon farms, hit by a glut of fish which has driven prices to a new low, may also be put out of business. Wholesale prices have fallen sharply in recent years from £2.23 per kilo in 2000, to the current £1.38. In parts of Scotland, the costs involved in farming salmon can be as high as £1.85 per kilo.
Ministers and officials from the Scottish Executive are now devising a plan to avoid the collapse of further fish farms.
Allan Wilson, the deputy environment minister, is proposing the Executive should act as a guarantor for salmon farm businesses, pledging that they will make good on bad debt should a crisis threaten a debtor with bankruptcy.
Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise would also be involved in the move, which would be accompanied by a concerted PR exercise to assuage both bank and insurance company fears and put the industry back on track.
Mr Wilson said: "We are willing to invest in the industry because it would be investing for the good of the whole country."
A spokesman for Scottish Quality Salmon, which represents more than 65 per cent of the industry in Scotland, said: "When there is pressure on price due to international competition, relationships with banks do become strained.
"Whilst we would prefer it wasn’t this way, any support from the Executive is most welcome."
But the Green Party remained unimpressed with the Executive’s action, repeating calls for a full independent inquiry in the light of the government’s own scientists’ advice that one portion of farmed salmon per week could breach World Health Organisation levels for some toxic chemicals.
The government warning comes in a report by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affair’s central science laboratory and concludes that eating one portion of salmon a week would result in an average daily toxins intake of 4.46 picograms, slightly above the WHO highest tolerable level of 4.0 picograms.
The FSA insisted the report was a "worst case calculation" that would have the effect of exaggerating the intake of dioxin, with a spokesman adding that it produced "an unsustainable calculation that represents nothing more than a ‘what if’ ... exercise".
But Mark Ruskell, the Green’s environment spokesman, described the safety assurances by the FSA as "transparently inadequate".
He said: "As well as dismissing the original report, the FSA has now criticised this CSL [central science laboratory] report too, which causes even more concern of the need to be told the whole story.
"The need for a full and independent investigation is now overwhelming. The FSA are refusing to acknowledge the potential worst case scenario and that is an unacceptable approach to public health." |
