West Highland Free Press / Friday 19th May
Norway is proposing to tighten its stranglehold on the farmed salmon market through the possibility of patenting the genes of the Atlantic salmon.
Lars Aukrust, director of the Norwegian Council for Research, has suggested that Norway should patent the Atlantic salmon genes or face the prospect in future of paying royalties - and losing pole position in the market if foreign countries patent the genes instead.
But the move could have serious repercussions for the remaining independent salmon farmers in countries such as Scotland, and it could also have implications for other salmon farming countries such as Ireland, Chile and Canada.
Legislative changes are expected in Europe this summer, which would make it possible for research companies to apply for patents for the genes of plants, mammals and fish. This could lead in future to control over genes which will yield lucrative rewards for successful applicants in terms of new drugs and food production methods.
Dr John Webster, a technical adviser to the Scottish salmon farmers representative body Scottish Quality Salmon, said this process would have to be watched carefully.
He said: "It is unlikely that they could map all the genes of all the different kinds of Atlantic salmon, but what they could do is to map all the salmon genes thought to be beneficial for a certain type of end-product, that they have already developed through years of selective breeding. This could have implications for Scottish salmon farmers because breeding stock on some. Scottish farms have been derived from selected Norwegian stock and to get new breeding stock would require a lot of new research. "If genes can be identified that are related to certain traits, such as fat content and colour, and if these are declared to be unique and patented then it becomes likely that anyone wanting to breed from fish bearing those genes could have to pay the Norwegians royalties to do so."
The precursor to SQS, the Scottish Salmon Growers Association, funded programmes in selective breeding to improve salmon stock in Scotland. This work is being carried on through work funded by the Link aquaculture programme to identify molecular markers for particular genes.
In the case of salmon this will prevent siblings being interbred, except where genetic gains can be identifled. But the danger for the Scottish industry, particularly the small remaining independent sector, is that Norway will press ahead with the programme and gain, supremacy. Both the salmon farming sector and the Norwegian government have already identified salmon farming as a strategic industry, which could pick up the economic slack once North Sea oil begins to run down. As such it will have access to significant financial and political backing.
Dr Webster said: "I'm not too concerned at the moment that this would give the Norwegians a stranglehold on the Scottish industry in the near future. But obviously this is a development that will have to be watched."
(posted without permission)
