Last Monday GRF Tyler Moeller led a discussion about the recent approval of transgenic salmon into the Canadian food supply. The technology behind the salmon is nothing novel, overly innovative, or exceptional with regards to other achievements in the field of biological engineering, and the fish themselves that have been modified to grow at twice the rate as wild type salmon have existed for over 2 decades. Why then are we only just seeing the introduction of these fish in 2017 (and not in the US despite established FDA safety clearance)? To me this is a classic example of the tiring over-regulation and bureaucracy that exist around genetically engineered food that force applied progress in this field to a painstakingly slow crawl. The time, money, and overall process required for regulatory approval is not justified from a scientific standpoint (see Conko et al., 2016 in Nature Biotechnology for an excellent overview on the backward nature of the bureaucracy surrounding regulatory approval of genetically engineered foods in this country), and for me, the salmon we discussed are just another long overdue step in the development of our food system that is increasingly demanding a more diversified, accessible, and economical food supply that in turn must grow and adapt to not just the needs of the consumer but even more so to long-term sustainability.

There is a global shortage of salmon (see report from the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization [FAO] for more information) that is causing large increases to the global price of salmon, and as a result, there is now a greater incentive to turn to natural sources of salmon to meet the present demand. Exploiting natural areas that proliferate with wild salmon in an attempt to meet the global demand will not be sustainable in the long term, and as is the case for a variety of other species, over-harvesting will lead to a loss of population biodiversity and overall species vitality. The genetically engineered salmon represent a high-throughput method of salmon production that can help alleviate pressures on wild populations to prevent over-harvesting and the subsequent harm to species biodiversity.

Advances in human civilization have always been met with similar advances in food production to address food security for a species ever-growing in population and complexity. The demand for salmon will not decrease in the near future, and genetically engineered salmon should be seen as the next step in the intensification of our food production system that must occur to satisfy consumer demand in a sustainable manner.