This little fishie goes to market

By Stu Ducklow

The Hants Journal

NovaNewsNow.com

There are several fish swimming in endless circles in a high-tech shed in Centre Burlington that, in June, may have the dubious honor of being the first locally-grown European Sea Bass to be eaten in Nova Scotia.

They will be cooked, presumably, by chef Michael Howell, owner of The Tempest Restaurant in Wolfville, director of Slow Food Canada and enthusiastic supporter of the fish farm.

Though slow food implies tradition, there is nothing traditional about how these fish are raised.

The fish live their whole lives in a collection of tanks, computer-controlled to keep their temperatures at an optimum 23°C. Fish are fed with on a similarly rigorous schedule to ensure optimum growth.

Visitors to the facility wash their hands and walk through sterilization baths before entering.

But it’s the water that makes the plant unique. Almost 100 per cent of it is recycled through a miniature sewage treatment plant. This saves a great deal of money on heating costs. Photographers are asked not to snap pictures for fear of revealing trade secrets.

In fact the plant operates so independantly, it could, in theory, be situated in an industrial park, far from the ocean, agrees Jeremy Lee, the British-born founder of Sustainable Fish Farming Canada.

A marine biologist with qualifications in engineering, he developed aquariums for several top museums before embarking on this venture with three hands-on partners, each experts in their fields, and one investor.

The group could have picked anywhere for its start-up operation. Nova Scotia was selected because it’s close to North American market, land is cheaper here and the provincial government is supportive.

The group invested $2.25 million of its own money and has received loans from ACOA of $500,000 plus $1.45 million from the province in two instalments. The group bought 50 acres of land near Centre Burlington and began building the plant in 2006.

The government held a news conference at the plant last week to announce that second instalment which will give the company cash to complete the fish farm and develop its market. In fact their first salvo in the marketplace was revealed by Dr. Lee in the form of the company’s new logo and name: Sustainable Blue.

New fish fry are being imported this month from France to join their bigger companions who will have moved other tanks down the production line.

By June the plant will be in full production at 100 tons per year. But this plant is only to prove the method works. Once the bugs have been worked out the operators expect financing will be much easier to get and they plan to build five more production lines, each capable of growing 300 tons of fish per year.

The five production lines will employ around 45 people directly and significantly more downstream at the fish processing plants, says Dr. Lee.

And that could be just the start. The North American market could take around 40,000 tons of fish per year more than are now being produced. Systems like the one being developed here could be built anywhere in the world. There’s no reason, for example, why cold-water fish like cod, can’t be grown in a Mediterranean-area fish farm.

Fish farms like these would cut the cost of importing fish drastically and bring fish from all over the world to kitchens everywhere.