The biotechnology company AquaBounty has stopped producing its genetically modified (GM) salmon and faces potential collapse, yet the federal and PEI governments have just announced $231,095 in new funding to the company.
Yesterday, CBAN sent a letter to the Auditors General of Canada and PEI and to the federal and
provincial ministers of fisheries to request an investigation into government decisions to fund AquaBounty. Our letter details the financial state of AquaBounty and the public controversy over its GM salmon and provides a timeline of over twenty years of public funding contrasted with a timeline of the company’s financial struggles.
Rumors about AquaBounty鈥檚 future are swirling as it sells off its assets and lays off workers. The company is selling its GM fish production facility in Prince Edward Island and has already sold its only other production site in the US.
The new government funding is for “adoption of new equipment to gain efficiency and increase production of the salmon hatchery incubation system”, but AquaBounty is currently selling its 鈥渟tate-of-the-art hatchery鈥� in PEI. The company maintains a small research and development facility at Bay Fortune, PEI, where limited activities could be carried out if the company survives. Today, AquaBounty鈥檚 share price is $0.885 USD.
The Canadian and provincial governments have already provided over $8-million in various loans, financing and grants to AquaBounty. CBAN questions the ability of the company to successfully use the new public funds and to repay an outstanding loan of $2-million from the Government of Prince Edward Island.
- See CBAN鈥檚 , September 2024.
- See our earlier press release from October 2, 2024:
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