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Indiana fish farm will begin raising GMO salmon next month

A land-based fish farm in East Central Indiana will begin raising AquAdvantage Salmon, genetically engineered Atlantic salmon, as soon as next month.

Sylvia Wulf, president and CEO of AquaBounty Technologies, says there are a lot of benefits to AquAdvantage Salmon.

“Our salmon are even more efficient at converting protein so for every pound of feed you get a pound of fish, and our fish grow in half the time of a conventional salmon,” she says.

Massachusetts-based AquaBounty Technologies purchased the Albany, Indiana, farm in 2017 and has been raising conventional salmon while waiting for regulatory approval.

Although the genetically modified salmon got approval for human consumption in 2015, the FDA just lifted an import ban this month that will allow the company to raise fish from eggs imported from Canada.

Wulf tells Brownfield there are also environmental benefits.

“This is what we call a recirculating aquaculture system,” she says. “We recirculate 99 percent of our water so it’s really energy efficient.”

She says the company is prepared to bring a sustainable, fresh product to consumers.

“90 percent of the salmon that’s eaten in the U.S. is imported so they’re flying somewhere between 3,000-4,000 miles to get here so the carbon footprint (with our system) is less and the fact we’re located near consumers creates a much fresher product,” she says.

AquAdvantage salmon will be ready for the market in 2020. The Indiana farm has the capacity to raise about 2.4 million pounds of salmon each year.

Wulf says there is also an opportunity for growth in the future. The farm currently has 15 employees and 80 acres. It could eventually include a processing facility for the Midwestern supply chain.  

Click here for more information.

Audio: Sylvia Wulf, AquaBounty Technologies

  • How are they going to find a buyer when over 90% of the grocer chains in the mid west have stopped selling GMO fish and especially salmon. Especially when the country and most of the industrialized world is distancing themselves from GMO products. Makes no sense.

    • It is the future, they will buy once the truth is known I is actually more nutritious then chemicals and anti biotic feed feed caged salmon where for years Ripcord a toxic cancerous illeagal chemical has been thrown directly in the oceans to kill the sea lice on the salmon but also every larve spat of every wild create around these salmon feed lots.

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