AquAdvantage

[hcbass]

I tried to post last night and my wifi just wouldn’t let me so I had to post this morning when I got to work. However Salmo Domestesticus is a farmed fish that has been selectively bred to grow at a faster rate for less pounds of feed per pound of fish, versus AquaAdvantage Salmon, a female, sterile fish that have been genetically engineered to grow at two times the rate than that of the Salmo Domesticus. According to Greenberg, “Aquabounty was eventually able to create a salmon that grew twice as fast as the already double growth speed of selectively bred salmon.’ (66) That means that salmon production could double with the introduction of these new genetically engineered fish. Salmo Domesticus, as talked about in our previous forum, has a great deal of effects on certain ecosystems and wild salmon. This new AquaAdvantage salmon would be able to be bred and raised entirely in captivity such as tanks and raceways. This means that there would be no threat of escaping and interbreeding as there is with the Salmo Domesticus, and also there would be no pollution and diseases in the waterways from the runoff of these farms. I would say that this is one extreme advantage that would change with the addition of this new genetically modified salmon. However that structure would be more expensive to produce. Would that mean that even though it grows two times faster, the prices would still not go down to be more affordable to common families? Either way it seems as though these new salmon would have a lesser effect on the wild stocks than the Salmo Domestecus. But in all this fight to make more and more salmon to feed the world, I do have a question; how much protein from animals do humans actually need? And why are we going to such extreme measures to provide a world with so much animal protein rather than plant proteins? Plants are the original source of protein for animals anyways. According to some studies, the vast majority of the population does not need as much protein as we are consuming, and those amounts have more than doubled in the past 50-100 years. Is producing a genetically engineered salmon even necessary? Also, what about how much food is wasted each year? Is there not a better system that would utilize the food we have now rather than keep producing more? (off topic but its still my thoughts in all of this).

[smoswald2]

I agree that by implementing better food usage practices, we could support a lot more people on the amount of food available to us today. I think it’s also a good point that not all protein comes from animals. Though I do think that producing more food will ultimately need to happen to support the global population, looking for more sustainable options is a great idea and should be looked into!

[khteets]

I agree with your opinion on how much protein we actually need to live and that we are taking unneeded extremes for something that we could also get from plants. I mean I understand that we need some meat in our diets to give us nutrients that plants can’t giVe us, but at this point we need to slow down on taking large amounts from a certain population of species.

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