The Salmon and Trout Association (S&TA) is questioning the certification of Scottish farmed salmon by the RSPCA/Freedom Food.
A new report by the S&TA details major concerns over the failure of Freedom Food to take proper account of the wider environmental impact of the accredited farms. The report exposes the fact that some farms with a dismal record on pollution and parasite control are still granted Freedom Food status.
The Freedom Food logo is used extensively on supermarket packaging for farmed salmon and on salmon farming companies’ websites as an indication predominantly of good animal welfare practice, but also of good environmental stewardship. Freedom Food certification of farmed Atlantic salmon is overseen by an RSPCA/Freedom Food farmed salmon working group of 19 members, 15 of which are either fish farmers or from companies with a direct commercial interest in fish-farming.
It is estimated that Freedom Food charges between £800,000 and £1 million per annum for farmed salmon certification (made up of a licence fee and ‘per kg’ charge), but as there is no published list of certified farms, this figure can only be an estimate.
Guy Linley-Adams, solicitor to the S&TA Aquaculture Campaign, and author of the report, said, “There can be no doubt that the Freedom Food certification for farmed salmon has set the bar very low in terms of the impact of salmon farming outside the farms themselves. The standards that claim to take account of the wider environmental impact on wild fish and the impacts on wild fish from parasites and disease spread from fish farms are simply not rigorous enough.”
Mr Linley-Adams said that the S&TA has alerted the RSPCA to the fact that environmental standards in the Freedom Food standards are no more stringent than the industry’s own Code of Good Practice or those required by minimum legal requirements, but says the organisation has refused to address the matter.
He said that despite Freedom Food declining to say which farms it certifies, information has come to light confirming that some farms operated by Wester Ross Fisheries Limited in the Two Brooms area and The Scottish Salmon Company in the Western Isles are Freedom Food certified – despite a catalogue of seabed pollution and high sea-lice numbers, as established by S&TA using data obtained under freedom of information from the public and statutory authorities.
Hughie Campbell-Adamson, chairman of S&TA Scotland, said, “By certifying farms that fail to meet basic environmental standards, the credibility of the RSPCA is at stake and it runs the risk of being charged with hoodwinking supermarkets and their customers. It should drop all environmental standards from Freedom Food certification, concentrating solely on animal welfare issues relating to the farmed fish.”
