I know that somewhere, in a sushi bar, a kitchen, a TikTok reel, young people are eating farmed salmon and not caring whether it swam in a pen or a river.
They tell us the Fraser River sockeye are back in force, shimmering and shimmying up the river in numbers not seen for more than a decade. And yet, as predictably as sea lions to free salmon, the activists dive in to claim victory.
They insist this abundance proves salmon farms are the enemy, never mind that the science, the data, and the actual ocean itself tell a very different story.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the Cohen Commission, scientists from here to Alaska all say the same thing: farmed and wild salmon can coexist. They always have.
In fact, Fraser sockeye runs increased after salmon farming began, rising from an average of 6.5 million before aquaculture to nearly 8 million since. Then in 2010, a record 28 million sockeye returned while salmon farms were at their peak.
But the activists won’t mention that.
Why would they? Facts have never been their favourite digestive.
Instead, they serve up misinformation like rotten fish, and the media laps it up under the guise of “balance.” They say farms closed, salmon thrived, end of story.
It doesn’t matter that Alaska – a region with zero salmon farms – is seeing sockeye surges too. It doesn’t matter that scientists point to La Niña ocean cycles, cooler waters, and marine productivity as the real cause.
The headlines are already written, and the activists are already quoted.
This is where my frustration deepens into something darker. Because this isn’t just about salmon. This is about food itself. This is about how easily the systems that feed us can be sabotaged.
Starvation is a weapon…cut off the supply, weaken the people, watch them crumble.
When activists fight to shut down salmon farming, they are not protecting the wild. They are dismantling one of the most sustainable food industries we have, one run largely by young people…scientists, technicians, dieticians, environmentalists.
The very generation that will inherit this bruised planet is already working in aquaculture, already building solutions, already innovating.
Meanwhile, their voices are drowned out by a handful of activists still dining on the stale bread of fearmongering.
And I can’t help but ask this…who benefits? Is there a sinister undertow here?
What if the constant drumbeat of “farms bad, wild good” is not innocent passion but something more deliberate? What if the real agenda is not saving salmon but starving society of one of its most efficient protein sources? Could it be that some activists, with or without prior knowledge, are pawns in a dangerous game to erode food security?
We should at least be willing to ask the question. Because in a world where billions already go hungry, and where conflict and climate are making food scarcer by the day, to deliberately sabotage aquaculture feels less like activism and more like participation in a starvation plan.
And that thought chills me far more than any cold La Niña current ever could.
The Real Questions the media won’t ask?
Well. Let me answer them for you.
Where is the proof salmon farms hurt wild fish?
Nowhere. Not a shred. Decades of federal studies, peer-reviewed science, pathogen and sea lice monitoring all say the same thing. Population-level impacts don’t exist.
But hey, why let evidence spoil a good town hall gathering?
Why did the Fraser’s biggest sockeye run happen when farms were booming?
Because ocean cycles, not farms, drive survival. In 2010, when 28 million sockeye surged home, salmon farms were pumping out their highest production ever.
If farms were the villain, the Fraser should’ve been empty. Instead, it overflowed.
Why are sockeye surging in Alaska, where there are no farms?
Exactly. No farms, same surges. Millions pouring back into Cook Inlet thanks to La Niña cooling and fat ocean feeding grounds.
But sure, let’s give credit to farm closures in British Columbia while Alaska’s fisheries across the Gulf laugh all the way to the bank.
Why do activists never mention the Cohen Commission’s findings that farms pose minimal risk?
Because it wrecks their bedtime story. Thirty-seven million taxpayer dollars, three years of hearings, shelves of evidence — all concluding farms are not the threat is too much reality.
So they just skip it, like a child who doesn’t like the ending.
The answers are all there in study after study for anyone with the ability and the patience to process information beyond a headline. But instead, we’re force-fed propaganda-noise.
A din beyond measure that drowns out the obvious fact that salmon farming is not the end of the world, it’s the future of feeding it.
Salmon farming is a food system with one of the lowest carbon footprints, minimal environmental impact, and nearly self-sufficient in its cycle.
Imagine that! an industry that grows protein without torching forests, without draining rivers, without belching carbon into the skies.
But no, let’s shut that down because a handful of activists prefer fairy tales over facts.
And that, my friends, is the tragedy. The future of food is swimming right in front of us, and too many would rather chant slogans than see it.
I am frustrated, yes.
Frustrated with the willful blindness of the media.
Frustrated with the activists who claim the moral high ground while digging the trenches of hunger.
Frustrated that we keep shouting facts into a storm of opinions.
But I am not silent. Because I know that somewhere, in a sushi bar, a kitchen, a TikTok reel, a young person is eating farmed salmon and not caring whether it swam in a pen or a river. They care that it nourishes them and that it tastes amazingly fresh and delicious.
And those young people are the future.
So I’ll keep writing, keep shouting if I have to.
Because feeding people is not propaganda.
Feeding people is not divide and conquer.
Feeding people is survival.