Along the Pacific Coast and around the nation, environmental groups have united with fishing barons to frustrate introduction of a new, genetically modified variety of salmon, called AquAdvantage.

Hysteria is their weapon, and hysteria is winning. It must be stopped.

Late last year, after being tested since 1995, U.S. Food and Drug Administration scientists approved the unrestricted sale of this seafood which, thanks to having one gene from a chinook salmon, grows without pause, reaching full maturity twice as fast.

Fish is good for us, so we should eat more, but 95 percent of Atlantic salmon is currently imported. A faster-growing fish makes sense because it reduces depletion of wild salmon while promoting locally grown, sustainable farming. Consumers pay less for healthier food, nature is conserved — everyone wins.


Regardless, environmental groups got California Gov. Jerry Brown to sign a ban on building this kind of salmon farming facility in the state, citing concerns about contamination.

They ignored scientists who noted that this breed is incapable of successfully mating with any of the 10 Pacific salmon species and that it is grown in isolated facilities.

Since then, Oregon and Washington state have adopted their own measures to promote fear and doubt about the future of sustainable fish. Environmentalists have extracted pledges from more than 60 grocery chains including Costco, Kroger, Target and Whole Foods that they will not stock the product, despite the FDA’s certification.

That’s too bad, because the world’s need for GMO salmon is compelling and comes down, in the end, to simple arithmetic. Over the past 50 years, the world’s population has grown from 3.3 billion to 7 billion. Meanwhile, since the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, the share of the world’s population living on $1.90 a day or less has dropped from 35 percent to 10 percent.


More people with more income means more demand for better nutrition and diverse diets. Since the mid-1960s, global meat consumption has more than quadrupled. And with the population headed to an estimated 9.7 billion by 2050, humanity’s protein needs could expand another 70 percent.

We either have to artificially pick winners and losers for people when it comes to food choice — something no one who advocates freedom supports — or let science and technology be creative.

Currently, the ocean serves as an important source of animal protein. In the years ahead it must become the major source. Why?

Environmentalists, ironically, say we have no choice. A cow requires 8 pounds of feed to produce 1 pound of body weight. With a pig, the ratio is 3-1. With a chicken, it is 2-1. But while a conventionally farmed salmon has a conversion rate of 1.2 to 1, in this new salmon, with simply one gene from another salmon, the rate is a startling 1 to 1!


British science writer Matt Ridley argues that we have reached or are about to reach peak farmland use. He argues that a decline in the world’s farm acreage is coming and may already have begun. With urbanization and other pressures of development bearing down on agriculture, it will be essential for the world’s population to shift to protein sources with more favorable conversion rates.

But while fish is an essential part of the answer, catching more wild fish is not. Again, it is a matter of math.

According to the World Wildlife Federation, between 1970 and 2012, global marine life was slashed in half. The reasons include decline of habitat — the aquatic equivalent of peak farmland — pollution and overfishing. As Mike Velings, a Dutch conservationist and advocate for sustainable aquaculture, concluded in a recent TED talk, “It’s unlikely, even with the best-managed fisheries, that we are going to be able to take much more [wild fish] from the ocean than we do today.”

There is no need to do so. A 21st-century approach to sustainable fish is the obvious answer.


Hysteria must not win on this critical issue. Whole Foods may have decided to give the cold shoulder to gene-tweaked Atlantic salmon, but the wealthy elites who shop there have that luxury. Outside the elite circles of people who can afford food as self-identification, family budgets are tight and billions of people around the world are even more vulnerable.

Officials like Gov. Brown and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski should stop their war on science — and make the humane, ethical choice.

Campbell is president of the American Council on Science and Health and a senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute.