This new advancement makes bluefin easier to produce, breed to size and cheaper at market allowing the new strain of bluefin to be bigger and cheaper than the popular tuna we know.
As most of bluefin's appeal has gone beyond its taste to the its relative scarcity and the resulting cachet of its high price both at market an on tables in fine-dining restaurants, it was inevitable that this breakthrough would meet with some resistance.
In reality, The EU's announcement has been a large metaphorical stone thrown into the waters of a scientific and gastronomic argument that is already rippling with growing negativity towards farmed, and often genetically-altered, fish.
A few weeks ago, The New York Times devoted a portion of The Week in Review to an explication of what the ability to farm bluefin will do to the environmental sustainability of commercial fishing throughout the Atlantic.
And it's not good...
Environmentalists argue that farming bluefin is not only deeply harmful to the ecology of fishing in the ocean but also harmful to the quality of the farmed fish as well. As bluefin will be ranched with other popular species that require different patterns of movement and temperatures, health factors like waste and overfeeding could arise throughout a plethora of farmed fish species.
And bluefin isn't alone.
A small company named AquaBounty Technologies Inc. based in Waltham, Ma is currently waiting for approval from the Food and Drug Administration to sell their genetically altered Atlantic Salmon species to market.
AquaBounty's fish has a shorter, multi-seasonal growth period and would be a cheaper alternative at market to salmon that is fished for in the less reliable North Atlantic.
Pressure has been on The FDA from both sides of the decision and the argument to AquaBounty's approval has a lot in common with what is being said against the new species of bluefin.
An instance of the opposition from the restaurant world is celebrity chef Rick Moonen, an authority on seafood ecology in the US and chef/owner of his own seafood restaurant in Las Vegas, who has written an excoriation of AquaBounty and the FDA for cnn.com's "eatocracy" blog.
Moonen takes an almost vitriolic stance against the FDA's apparent approval of AquaBounty's Atlantic salmon, and even terms the new species "Frankenfish," while warning strongly against the appeal of cost and accelerated growth rate of genetically modified fish;
"In those conditions it becomes necessary to use antibiotics on an already unstable fish in order to control bacterial infections and other diseases -- and to protect the investment of carnivorous fish farming. The byproducts of all this -- a wonderful stew of feces, unconsumed fish food and dead fish called, sweetly, "effluent" -- create a suffocating blanket that spreads across the ocean floor, resulting in a massive dead zone surrounding the farming area. It kills clams, oysters, eel grasses -- where young fish feed and grow -- and more."Moonen's opinions are echoed throughout the restaurant and retail food industries.
Most recently, Whole Foods Markets unveiled a color-coded "Sustainability Rating System" for every species of fish that is offered in their seafood sections. Species in the "Red" category are, according to a company press release, described as "suffering from overfishing, or... current fishing methods (that) harm other marine life or habitats."
Whole Foods is also hoping to use their new rating system towards achieving their (concurrently announced) goal of not having any "Red Rated" fish for offer by Earth Day 2013.
As the major criticisms of both AquaBounty and The EU's genetic modification programs seem to fit perfectly in Whole Food's "Red Rating" criteria, it appears that the FDA will have a lot of decisions to make before April 22nd, 2013 for Whole Foods and chefs like Moonen to see a turn for the better.
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