**8. Discussion**

332 Aquaculture

Spirituality or religion had little or no influence when it came to ethical issues by GMOs in this survey. Students supported use of GMOs for saving human lives (e.g. by producing medicines and vaccines) followed by production of animal feed (e.g. from plants, algae and microorganisms). Surprisingly, it was not found that production of cheaper food could encourage the students to support the use of GMOs. In general, students requested

**7.2 Public attitudes to animal welfare and willingness to support and pay for e.g.** 

**7.3 Actor perceptions of needs and interests in access to aquatic genetic material** 

Studies of the fish breeding sector for several species and in several countries indicate that they are all prone to rapid structural changes in response to calls for profitability and commercialization (Olesen et al., 2007; Rosendal et al forthcoming). This correspond with a recent survey among fish farmers in Norway where it was found that the most important source of risk for the industry was future salmon prices, institutional risks and diseases (Bergfjord, 2009). In the same study the respondents (farmers) was also asked to identify the most important risk management strategies to the risk issues identified, which was to keep

The public breeding programme on cod is currently seen as a public good for Norwegian breeders (interview NN2). The authorities are concerned that the public and private cod breeding programmes can compete on a level playing field, so that the one with public funding is not given unfair competitiveness. At this early stage, it is acknowledged that it is very hard to fund a breeding program, as the economic returns from increased growth may still be a long way off. For salmon, the real growth and economic returns from the breeding program was not apparent until about the fourth generation – and cod is still only in the second or third. There are two major reasons why public funding may be the preferred solution, at least in the early phases: First, during the early phases of breeding, basic mass selection using individual phenotypic information can provide a similar and much cheaper response in growth. This is why more advanced breeding programmes are often less profitable, particularly on a short term, as they are equally costly to start and run the first generations. However, phenotype or mass selection is usually much more limited with

In a recent study by Olesen et al. (2010) it was found that a relatively large percentage of Norwegian consumers agreed (at least partially) that Norwegian animal welfare standards were sufficiently strict (78,1%), and that fish welfare was sufficiently protected in Norwegian fish farming (67.9%). In order to estimate a lower bound for the consumers' willingness to pay for improved welfare for farmed salmon, a real choice experiment with eco-labelled salmon was carried out in Norway (Olesen et al., 2010). It was found that the average respondent preferred eco-labelled salmon to conventional salmon when the colour was the same, and was willing to pay additional 2 euro per kg fillet for eco-labelled salmon. The price premium depends on the conventional and organic salmon being the same colour, and an inferior appearance due to lack of pigmentation significantly reduces consumer interest in organic salmon. This is also consistent with the results in other studies investigating consumer preferences toward organic products with inferior appearance

labelling of GM food as well as of salmon fed with GM plant feed.

**improved health and welfare of farmed fish** 

(Thompson & Kidwell, 1998; Yue et al., 2009).

cost low and ensure profitability.

In spite of the tremendous benefit cost ratios and value creation for the society in terms of more efficient fish production and lower fish prices, only a small percentage (ca 10%) of the current world aquaculture production is based on genetically improved material from modern breeding programs (Gjedrem et al., 2011). The reasons that aquaculture is lagging tremendously behind the agriculture sector in this respect may be the lack of tradition and training of applying systematic selective breeding, little interaction with agriculture or aquaculture research groups with the knowledge and technology, low prices of roe and fry and resulting low profit margins of genetic improvement for breeders and hatcheries. The latter has made genetic improvement an insecure investment objective, perhaps also due to the ease of illegally reproducing highly fertile fish and marketing 'pirate copied' material. The last two decades, R&D funds have tended to be prioritized for research in molecular genetics and genomics with less funding for further development and establishment of selective breeding that has proved to give long term genetic gains. However, also for applying genomic information efficiently a selective breeding program is a prerequisite.

With interesting similarities to the ABS debate in the CBD, there seems to be little immediate value in breeding and breeding programmes. Previous studies have shown that the incentives for capitalizing on salmon breeding materials have been virtually non-existent, due to low roe prices and low profit for improved breeding material; a trend that does not seem likely to change in the near future (Olesen et al., 2007; Rosendal et al., 2006). Similarly, there seems to be little profit to be reaped from increased knowledge about and improvements of genetic resources and their traits, as has also been claimed in the ABS debate (Grajal, 1999). At the same time, it is hard to refute the great profits from biotechnology – from traditional breeding to genetic engineering – and there is a growing business interest in access to valuable genetic material (Laird & Wynberg, 2005). This seems paradoxical also with a view to the valuable good of faster growing and hence cheaper salmon, which is resulting from the breeding programs. Here also we see that the willingness to pay is small but the interest in access is paradoxically high. The problem is that bringing forth fast growing, disease free fish is relatively expensive, whereas the result can be copied at very low costs. This has led to a pressure towards profitability and privatisation in the aquaculture sector, including the public breeding programmes. However, the cost of maintaining a good, disease free product is relatively high and the question is whether the market can be expected to deliver this service, when there is such a high degree of uncertainty regarding profits. Due to the high fertility of aquatic species, aquaculture breeding programs have shown to give high benefit/cost ratios and tremendous value creation for the society. This is also the case for family based programs aiming for a broad and sustainable breeding goal with many traits. The paradox illustrates the challenge of securing policy goals of affordable access to genetic improvements in breeding and to stimulate sustainability and innovation in aquaculture. The alternative to the continued funding of public breeding programmes may portend forfeiting the normative ideal of providing improved breeding material on an affordable basis.

In general, aquaculture is experiencing pressure towards higher production efficiency and short term profits. Hence, actors face emerging difficulties pertaining to adequate funding for sustainable breeding programmes and affordable access to improved genetic material. Historically, aquaculture in India and Norway has mainly been based on public investments to increase production, develop and widely disseminate material to as many users as possible, rather than creating proprietary products. The same was true for the original objectives of the GIFT tilapia project. This illustrates the nature of breeding material as a public good. Greater involvement of private sector leads however to stronger need for legal protection of genetic material. As this keeps knowledge out of the public domain, it is perceived to have negative implications for aquaculture. In a study by Rosendal et al. (forthcoming) it was found similarities between Norway, India and the GIFT donors regarding their normative objective to maintain affordable access to improved breeding material. Moreover, a common concern among the actors interviewed was how to avoid the tendency towards monopolisation in a globalised market and how to maintain affordable access to aquatic breeding material. At the same time, the demand for profitability is undermining these goals. This may lead cod (and well as shrimp and carp) breeding programmes on a similar track as that of salmon and GIFT tilapia. A waiver of public control may seem to go against the interests and advice from both private and public actors in the aquaculture sector itself.

Market consolidations and privatisation are among the structural factors that the actors themselves recognize as most important in changing the ground rules within the salmon sector (Olesen et al., 2007). The privatisation and commercialisation can be expected to turn the breeding goals towards developing products for which there are economically viable markets rather than developing new products based on social, ecological and biological criteria (with e.g. disease resistance and fish welfare traits). This development has come a long way in the case of salmon (and tilapia), where those that were previously public collections and publicly funded breeding programmes and breeders' lines have now been privatised; similar trends can be expected in the case of farmed cod. The overall structural traits of the aquaculture sector also go a long way in explaining why the aquaculture sector is much less subject to ABS conflicts between developed and developing countries compared to the plant sector. While not engendering a North-South conflict, the basic interests in access to breeding material remains similar for plant and animal genetic resources. As a result of the structural developments leading to fewer and larger companies, access conflicts may be more likely to evolve between small and large scale actors in the sector rather than between countries.

The biology of breeding suggests that the real value lies in continuous upgrading and improvement, and patents are not useful for this as it freezes innovation. The cost and time of obtaining a patent along with the long protection period in patent law (twenty years) hardly promote rapid innovation in sectors where continuous upgrading in a biological dynamic system is the most viable and sustainable approach. Interestingly, neither of the two salmon breeding companies (AquaGen and Landcatch Natural Selection) that managed to map the QTL marker for IPN resistance have chosen to patent it. Probably, the costs involved with enforcing such patents are considered too high for these companies (even for AquaGen backed by a big international firm). Nevertheless, similar to agriculture and pharmacy, the structural changes within the aquaculture sector seem to be much more influential than biological traits in affecting actors' perceptions of need for access and protection. This also has implication for the broader international debate pertaining to the Nagoya Protocol on ABS and whether it needs to be supplemented by sector based treaties emulated to different types of genetic resources. As the structural traits of monopolization and globalisation are similar across the board (agriculture, pharmacy, aquaculture), that would suggest a reduced rationale for a sector approach to regulating international transactions with genetic resources.
