Aquaculture strategy hopes to hook more fish farmers

 
Northern Ontario fish farmers hope the waters ahead for their industry are less choppy with the release of a new strategy and action plan.

The Northern Ontario Aquaculture Association said their Strategy for Sustainable Aquaculture Development in Ontario is a blueprint to stimulate investment, attract new operators, promote greater public acceptance of fish farming, and improve a sometimes rocky relationship with government by creating the regulatory framework they've always wanted.

Association president Mike Meeker, a veteran Manitoulin Island fish farmer, calls the document “the most important advance” the industry has made in 15 years.

At its current size, Ontario fish farmers can't produce enough trout to land contracts with big suppliers and grocery store chains. Yet Ontario imports millions of pounds of rainbow trout from Chile, Argentina, Peru and Norway.

“It's totally ridiculous,” said Meeker. “We can be growing it and we can do it in a very environmentally responsible and sustainability way. This is what we've been saying for 10 years.”

The association represents eight cage aquaculture operations in Georgian Bay and the North Channel of Lake Huron, along with fish processors, and dozens of land-based producers in southern Ontario who supply trout fingerlings.