The past month has seen further acquisitions in the aquaculture sector and attempts, not always successful, by some salmon farmers to expand geographically.

Mowi Scotland, the country’s biggest producer, bought Wester Ross Fisheries, it was confirmed on June 30. Wester Ross, Scotland’s last independent salmon farmer, was set up in 1977 by Robin Bradley and taken over in 2006 by his son, Gilpin, one time chair of industry body Salmon Scotland.

In Norway, SalMar was on track to become the world’s second biggest salmon farmer, behind Mowi, after sealing a deal with Norway Royal Salmon. The two companies’ combined production in 2021 was 270,000 (gutted weight) tonnes, compared to Mowi’s global total of 500,000-plus tonnes.

Canadian salmon farmer Cooke Aquaculture, meanwhile, made a bid (worth £587 million) for Tasmania based Tassal. Though rejected, Cooke, headquartered in New Brunswick, with salmon farming operations in Canada, Chile, Scotland and the US, increased its stake in Tassal from 5.4 per cent to 7.6 per cent.

Global demand for farmed salmon has soared over the past nine years, growing 120 per cent in value and 45 per cent in volume between 2012 and 2021, data from Mowi’s 2022 Salmon Industry Handbook revealed.

Recent growth was reflected in Norway’s record export figures, with 534,500 tonnes exported to a value of NOK 48.4 billion (£4,000 million) in the first half of the year, a 37 per cent rise on the same period last year, attributed to high prices.

The biggest markets for Norwegian salmon were Poland and France – and the US, where Norway seized market share from Chile, Canada and the UK. Scotland exported 1,916 tonnes of salmon worth £19.5 million during the first four months of 2022, drops of 51 per cent in volume and 32 per cent in value compared to the previous year, Undercurrent News reported.

Scotland’s salmon farmers, attempting to increase their market share, moved a step closer towards a more efficient regulatory system, following the establishment of a government forum to spearhead change.

Recommendations by independent reviewer Professor Russel Griggs will be discussed at the new Scottish Aquaculture Council, which met for the first time on June 27, chaired by Scotland’s Rural Affairs Secretary, Mairi Gougeon.

The forum will attempt to improve problematic relations between fish farmers and government agencies, highlighted by Griggs in his report.

Salmon Scotland chief executive Tavish Scott said agencies responsible for approving farm applications were failing to meet statutory targets. The Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) is pushing up fees for applications by 600 per cent (from £4,444 to up to £32,000), but Scott said he doubted this would speed up decisions. Around three quarters of all salmon farm applications are currently over the statutory 350-day deadline.

In other developments in Scotland, a new Marine Aquaculture Innovation Centre (MAIC) was opened on Loch Fyne by Otter Ferry Seafish in partnership with Innovate UK and Agri-EPI Centre; Mowi tested Scotland’s first 200, circumference pens, due to be installed at the company’s high energy site at Hellisay, Barra; and the Scottish Salmon Company changed its name to Bakkafrost Scotland, after its takeover by the Faroese group in 2019.

In Canada, salmon farmers on the east coast received a robust endorsement from politicians, in contrast to the treatment of the sector in British Columbia. The premiers of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador said they were ‘wholeheartedly committed to maintaining the existing system for licensing and overseeing aquaculture operations in Atlantic Canada’.

BC farmers, who have been told to phase out net pens, won a reprieve of sorts when the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), which regulates the industry on the west coast, agreed to renew salmon farming licences for two years.

But many of the major players are now investing elsewhere, with Norwegian owned producers Mowi and Grieg already established on the east coast; Cermaq’s owner, Mitsubishi, announcing a land-based salmon venture in Japan; and east coast leader Cooke Aquaculture casting its net towards Australia, as mentioned above.

Against this backdrop, China successfully harvested the first batch of Atlantic salmon from its deep-sea fish farm – the world’s first low-latitude Atlantic salmon farm site – in June. The fish were reared in a fully submersible net pen named Deep Blue Number-1, located 130 nautical miles from the coast of the Yellow Sea.

Globally, the growth of aquaculture continues, with total output forecast to exceed 100 million tonnes for the first time by 2027, according to a report by the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).

The share of farmed species in global fisheries and aquaculture production is tipped to grow from 49 per cent in 2020 to 53 per cent in 2030, the FAO said in its State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture survey. Growth in all species of farmed fish is projected to increase, and fishmeal and fish oil production is expected to rise by 11 and 13 per cent respectively.

Aquatic foods, which include caught as well as farmed fish, make an increasingly critical contribution to food security and nutrition in the 21st century, said the UN, contributing about 17 per cent of the animal proteins consumed in 2019, reaching 23 per cent in lower-middle-income countries and more than 50 per cent in parts of Asia and Africa.