The Dominion (Wellington) / June 19, 2000 / MILNE Jonathan
NEW ZEALAND fish farmers have been told to stop feeding animal byproducts to their fish or risk letting a mad cow type of disease into the human food chain.
Farmers also had to get their act together on excluding chemicals containing dioxin from their farms, Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission member John Mitchell told the commission's annual meeting in Wellington at the weekend.
Dr Mitchell, just back from a big aquaculture conference in France, said New Zealand's farmed seafood would be rejected by European countries if farmers could not prove they were meeting European Union health regulations.
Genetically engineered fish could not be exported to Europe either.
New Zealand's aquaculture exports earned about $ 200 million in the past year.
Fish could no longer be fed any food derived from beef, sheep, pork, or chicken industry byproducts because of the danger of the human variant of mad cow disease, Creutzfeld-Jacob disease, he said.
Cage-reared salmon, snapper and flounder farmers "had better be pretty damn sure they are using fishmeal -- byproducts from a fish factory that cannot be fashioned into food products for human consumption -- and clean fishmeal at that".
Salmon Farmers Association chairman Mark Gillard, from King Salmon, said meat-based and bone-based meal was used because it was cheap and efficient. He did not believe there was a health risk but farmers would have to change their practices when new European regulations came in.
"It would affect us. I'd like to know the reason why they would want to ban it first. You'd have to have some pretty good evidence that it shouldn't be used, because it's a pretty efficient use of something that can't otherwise be used," he said.
Dr Mitchell warned aquaculturalists: "Don't just assume that because it's been a practice to do certain things, traditionally in this corner of the world, that you can carry on doing those things. These are high-valued products that can generate high prices, but none of it's any consolation to you if you arrive at the border and someone turns you away."
He said there was also much concern in Europe after scandals in Belgium where dioxin was allowed to penetrate foods.
"It is a very grave concern that in the management of marine farms, with the vessels and machines operating around them, that the oil, diesel and other fuels cannot possibly escape into the environment where the fish are growing because many of those fuels carry dioxins and other toxic chemicals," he said.
(posted without permission)
