FDA Approves Production of Transgenic Salmon in the United States

The FDA has approved the request of AquaBounty Technologies; a company with offices in Maynard, Massachusetts and Fortune, Prince Edward Island, specializing in biotechnology and genetics to produce genetically modified salmon within the United States.

In 2015 the company has received the approval for its entrance to the country, but not its production. Even so, the company had acquired a fish farm in Indiana, suggesting that it already anticipated the subsequent approval of its production.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a commissioner of Food and Drugs (FDA) indicates that after the analysis carried out, the genetically modified salmon complies with all the legal requirements of safety and concludes that there is no impediment to its production on American soil.

The FDA has supported the process of bringing biotechnological innovations to the market, with the highest quality standards, providing security and confidence to consumers.

For AquaBounty Technologies it is an event, since it decreases the country’s dependence on salmon imports. On the other hand, environmental groups denounce this approval for the ecological threats that this milestone would bring, although it is not known with certainty if there is a real danger linked to the life of wild salmon.

Ricardo Baeza Errazuriz, Managing Partner of Chilean Fisheries in Miami, does not see it as a threat who focused on importing fish from Chile. “I think it is a very good thing to be able to tell with Salmon made in US. Not only will generate new jobs, but it will activate refrigerators and production chains, with faster times to reach the customer. It is a different type of product than the one we work with, which in a certain way could be competition, but the client already knows the type, quality and product he wants at his table”, says Mr. Baeza.

It is a matter of waiting and see what the results are to analyze then what kind of consumers opt for this kind of food, what industries are turned to production, and how it will affect the balance of the internal and external market.