Report: Salmon farming here to stay

KINGSTON, R.I., March 9 (UPI) -- U.S. residents are eating four times as much salmon as they were 20 years ago, most of it imported farmed salmon.

Researchers at the University of Rhode Island found that the value of wild salmon caught in the United States and Canada dropped from $800 million to $300 million between 1980 and 2004, the Providence Journal reported. In 1980, only 2 percent of the salmon sold globally was farmed, which grew to 65 percent in 2004.

"The Great Salmon Run: Competition Between Wild and Farmed Salmon" by Cathy A. Roheim and James Anderson of URI and Gunnar Knapp of the University of Alaska concludes that wild salmon cannot supply the market farmed salmon has created.

"Salmon farming is a major world industry, which is here to stay," the report concludes.

The researchers found that the United States has gone from being an exporter to an importer of salmon, mostly because stringent regulation has made salmon farming in the country unable to compete. Chile and Norway are the biggest exporters.