Indiana salmon hatchery to raise nation's first genetically modified animal cleared for human consumption

CHICAGO – On a winding road on the outskirts of a small Rust Belt town in eastern Indiana, a fish hatchery is poised to raise the country's first genetically engineered animal approved for human consumption by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

AquaBounty Technologies, a Massachusetts-based biotechnology company, altered the genetic makeup of the Atlantic salmon to include a gene from chinook salmon and DNA sequence from an eel-like species known as an ocean pout. The result is a salmon that grows to market size about twice as fast as its natural counterpart.

The company, which already breeds the salmon in Canada, got its first batch of bioengineered eggs at its indoor facility in Albany, Ind., May 29, and the first salmon fillets raised there could appear in U.S. supermarkets in late 2020. AquaBounty's decision to raise the salmon in Indiana is a landmark moment for the Midwest, a region known globally for its agricultural prowess but one where land-based fish farming operations have struggled mightily to become profitable.

AquaBounty purchased the shuttered complex about 10 miles northeast of Muncie where yellow perch had previously been raised and renovated it for Atlantic salmon. Currently, the 16-person staff, which includes factory workers who were laid off in recent years, oversees around 100,000 conventional Atlantic salmon from eggs until they reach market size. That production is expected to grow once the bioengineered eggs arrive.

The U.S., which imports more than 90% of its seafood, has lagged behind much of the world in aquaculture production, and proponents hope the introduction of genetically engineered fish might help promote the industry, relieve pressure on ocean fisheries and scale back the United States' $16 billion seafood trade deficit.

"Because this fish grows faster, you can use the same facility and produce twice as much product, and the overhead cost is halved," said William Muir, a professor emeritus at Purdue University who has researched genetically modified animals. "That's really where we're going with it: Can we produce fish more cheaply?"

Some consumer groups remain fiercely opposed to the production and sale of genetically modified organisms. These organizations have been vocal crusaders against AquaBounty, pressuring many mainstream retailers into pledging they won't carry the product they have maligned as "Frankenfish."

"This is purely a commercial decision to make the fish grow faster," said Megan Westgate, executive director of the Non-GMO Project, a Washington state-based nonprofit. "They've succeeded in proving that desired trait. But there's no benefit to the consumer or the environment."

To date, there's no scientific evidence concluding that genetically modified foods are harmful to human health. The FDA said AquaBounty salmon are as safe to eat as conventional salmon.

Muir, who studied the risks of the salmon being exposed to the wild population based on government data, said many of the fears surrounding GMO foods are overblown.

"These people who are anti-GMO are not data-driven, they are agenda-driven. And their agenda was to make sure a GMO product was never on a dinner plate," he said.

However, one of the foremost complaints against AquaBounty has been transparency. In Canada, where the company sells conventional and genetically modified salmon, it has sold hundreds of tons of the fish, although it wouldn't disclose to which retailers, and there are no requirements for labeling in that country.

After the genetically modified salmon was approved to be raised and sold in the U.S. in 2015, egg shipments were blocked until labeling guidelines were established, which allowed for the import ban to be lifted two months ago. Still, the U.S. labeling mandate won't take effect until 2022, creating uncertainty about whether AquaBounty will voluntarily label its salmon in the interim.

AquaBounty CEO Sylvia Wulf argues there's no need for labeling in Canada because both wild and genetically modified salmon are the same nutritionally. But Westgate, of the Non-GMO Project, said a lack of disclosure robs consumers of choice.

"People should know what's in their food," Westgate said. "It's a transgenic species, a combination of three fish. A lot of people just feel it's unnatural, and it's not fish they'd want to feed to their children."

The AquaBounty salmon was initially developed in 1989 after Canadian scientists attempted to develop an Atlantic salmon that could withstand the country's frigid temperatures. The salmon grows to roughly 10 pounds in 16 to 18 months, compared with as long as 32 months in the wild. While salmon already depend on much less food to grow than cattle, swine or chicken, the AquaBounty salmon requires 20 to 25% less feed than ordinary Atlantic salmon. The company's Indiana facility features a recirculating water-filtration system, which minimizes water use. And shipping salmon from Indiana to other U.S. cities within a 500-mile radius will have as much as a 25 times smaller carbon footprint compared with other major salmon importing routes (Norway to New York and Chile to Miami).

Pete Bowyer, farm manager of the Indiana facility, said these kinds of operations make sense environmentally and business-wise, especially considering salmon is a perennially popular seafood choice in the United States, along with shrimp and tuna.

"The thing about recirculating aquaculture is that you are not really constrained by climate or topography, which traditionally fish farming has been," Bowyer said.

In 2017, more than 356,000 tons of salmon were imported to the U.S. with a value of $3.5 billion.

"It's produced in Chile, Norway and Scotland. It's absurd. In my personal opinion, this is the direction that the U.S. is headed in," Bowyer continued as he walked into the hatchery sporting waterproof boots and waders.

Still, not everyone is convinced. Not long after AquaBounty salmon was approved in 2015, Costco Wholesale Corp., one of the largest retailers in the world, announced it had no intention of selling the AquaBounty salmon after backlash during public hearings from consumers. The corporation joined dozens of U.S. supermarket chains that have vowed not to sell GMO salmon.

"I think public perception in the U.S. is that GMO is scary," said Tomas Hook, director of the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant. "I think it's a pledge that is intended to placate some of the public and people who are anti-GMO."

Seafood is the most popular meat in the world, with global consumption surpassing all land animals combined. Experts said the time is now to bring aquaculture into the mainstream.

"If you look at the trajectory of fishery harvests around the world, we see a big increase after World War II through the 1970s, as new technologies, particularly in oceans, have helped us get better at catching fish," Hook said. "But sometime around the late 1990s, early 2000s, even though we have all these fishing fleets and technology, we basically saw a plateau and decline in fishery harvest. That's despite a growing population and more people on planet Earth that need protein from fish. The solution that we need to feed people is in aquaculture. "