Newfoundland and Labrador Commercial Atlantic Cod Farm Demonstration Project

March 02, 2009

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The Newfoundland and Labrador Commercial Atlantic Cod Farm Demonstration Project will develop a commercial-scale cod farm in Newfoundland and Labrador. This project will use “best approach” techniques and equipment to successfully grow cod from fry through to market size, and show the technical and economic feasibility of cod farming in Newfoundland and Labrador.

This project will help to diversify the aquaculture sector in Newfoundland and Labrador, and also create sustainable jobs, growth and opportunity for rural communities and the people of this province. Seventeen new farm jobs will be created as part of this project, in addition to an undetermined number of jobs in processing and production, along with additional employment in other areas of the supply and service sector.

The sites for the demonstration farm will be in the Hermitage Bay area on the south coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. The former scallop hatchery at Belleoram will be refurbished and equipped to serve as a nursery.

A total of 200 - 250,000 cod will be stocked in the first year, and an estimated 400,000 annually for years two and three. Juveniles will be supplied by Memorial University of Newfoundland’s Ocean Sciences Centre and the University of New Brunswick’s hatchery facility in Shippegan, New Brunswick. The eggs will be sourced from the two elite broodstocks developed in the respective provinces by the Genome Atlantic broodstock program.

The demonstration farm will be a multi-year undertaking, recognizing that harvesting and marketing of the first year-class of fish will not occur until year four.

On March 2, 2009 the Government of Canada and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador announced a $8.5 million project to develop a cod aquaculture demonstration farm on Newfoundland’s South Coast. Fisheries and Oceans Canada will invest $1 million from the Aquaculture Innovation Program (AIMAP); and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) is investing $500,000 from its Business Development Program (BDP). The Province of Newfoundland and Labrador has committed $2 million over four years.

Cooke Aquaculture, an independent family-owned aquaculture company based in Blacks Harbour, New Brunswick, employs 1500 people in Atlantic Canada and Maine.  It generates more than $270 million in annual sales while delivering a wide variety of high quality farmed seafood products to the Canadian and US marketplace.  Recognizing the tremendous potential for aquaculture in Newfoundland and Labrador, Cooke established its first salmon farms in the Fortune Bay area in 2006.

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