A week ago animals have received more horrible news.
After years of discussions and delays, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the production, sale, and consumption of genetically modified Salmon, the first transgenic animal approved as food.

Fish farming, usually euphemized as aquaculture, is already the most rapidly growing agricultural industry with almost 10% average growth rate per year in the last four decades (2015 was the first time the consumption of factory farmed fishes exceeded the one of caught fishes), and it is about to get worse.

A fish exploitation expansion company from Massachusetts called AquaBounty, engineered salmon who grows much faster by adding a growth hormone regulating gene from another type of salmon. In addition to being much faster, the growth would also be year-round, as a result of another gene added from an ocean pout.
The genetically modified salmon reaches “market size” in 18 months instead of 3 years. It can mean that the same number of fishes would suffer half of the time, but it would most probably mean that the number of exploited fishes would be doubled. That is what happened in the chicken industry, and it keeps growing every year.
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Just until a few decades ago the Chinese obtained over 90% of their calories from rice, wheat, beans, and tubers. However as China began to emerge from poverty and isolation in the 1980’s, the rising living standards, rapid urbanization and expansion of the middle class, have led to a significant and horrible change in the typical Chinese dinner plate.
Meat, eggs, and dairy products became a key source of food, with more than 20% of the total calories in the 2000’s.

In 1983 the meat consumption was 16 kilograms per person per year, 25 kilograms per person by 1995, 31 kilograms by 1999, 50 kilograms by 2000, and now it is more than 55 kilograms per person per year. That’s about 12% increase per year on a per capita basis, a threefold increase in less than 25 years.

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