Hello, everyone. My name is Ruby Berry. I'm with the Georgia Strait Alliance, and I'd like to talk about the community economic development potential.
I understand you have come across the report that we co-authored outlining the global assessment of closed-system aquaculture, and I wanted to just point out that while it's a good overview and most of the systems in that report are still in operation, the report was out of date almost as soon as we published it. According to the operators, this technology is developing by leaps and bounds and is hard to keep track of in any kind of published manner.
As a result of that, what we're seeing is that the technology for closed containment has improved to the point that there is no doubt in any of the engineers' or operators' minds that this is a technologically viable system for growing fish, and indeed has the potential for actually being much more efficient in that the growth ratios and the conditions the fish are grown in actually can be optimized and the fish can probably be grown quite a bit faster.
As a result, a number of communities and enterprises are looking at developing closed containment. We know of five to seven projects that are in development at the moment, and some of them are actually ready to hit the ground. The only barrier at this point is investment. It's an economic barrier. In the spreadsheets, research on the economics of it shows a likely turnaround of investment in five to seven years. It's just that the initial investment is a challenge.
There are a number of first nations, small operators, and engineers who are currently working on hatchery systems to grow it--it's an expansion, essentially, of hatchery technology--who are recognizing the value in this of local jobs. Closed containment can be sited in less remote areas, so they can actually be close to the labour force. We're seeing expectations of increased food security. We're seeing development of projects from small local-sized projects the size of one current open-net farm--projects that can feed the local economy, provide jobs, and also provide some local food--all the way to very large industry-sized operations that are looking at exporting and competing with the current open-net systems.
There are two closed-containment systems in operation right now. One is an operation in the Lower Mainland that essentially feeds a niche market in the restaurant community in Vancouver, and the other one is in Washington State. It has just developed a relationship with Overwaitea Food Group, which is now selling closed-containment salmon in their stores at the moment and has said to us that they're not looking at a price premium. They're selling it at the same rate as the fish grown in open nets and they're still turning a profit. They've said to us very clearly, “If you build it, we will buy it”. They're very clearly interested in an ecologically sustainable way to grow salmon in farms, and they're supporting the move to closed containment.
As I said, a number of these groups are ready to hit the ground running, and the only real barrier that we're seeing is that there's a need for some infusion of income.
We're looking to you for some recommendations for some government funding. There are a number of mechanisms already in place through the AIMAP program and other funding programs. This would work very easily with them if funding could be directed toward the development of closed containment. Funding needs to be larger than the current particular allocations in order to get these operations under way, but as I said, it's not very long before they become self-sustaining economically as well as environmentally.