Organic fish
Is there such a thing as organic fish?
As far as I know, fish caught in the wild cannot be marketed as organic in the UK.
However, several supermarkets and many independent organic retailers now stock organic trout and salmon produced in fish farms. Several types of farmed mussels and shellfish are also likely to become more widely available in the future.
In organic fish farming, many of the pesticides, dyes and antibiotics widely used in conventional fish farming are not permitted and so these fish products are generally accepted to be credible ‘organic’ products.
However, from an animal welfare point of view, there is some controversy about allowing farmed fish to be labelled as ‘organic’. Organic principles demand that livestock (which includes fish) should be able to express its ‘natural’ behaviour pattern and be kept as close to natural stocking densities as possible.
This requirement can be satisfied for mussels without difficulty, and trout and many other freshwater fish are reared in large ponds/reservoirs at low stocking densities. The ‘natural’ density for salmon, however, is almost impossible to achieve, so it is doubtful that a truly organic salmon can ever be farmed.
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