The aquaculture sector in Scotland has been bookended this summer by a new parliamentary inquiry into salmon farming, which began taking evidence in June and will conclude its investigation following the summer recess.
The Rural Affairs and Islands committee (RAIC), which is looking at the implementation of recommendations by a previous probe in 2018, has already heard from aquaculture scientists, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, the Fish Health Inspectorate, wild fish interests and NGOs, among others.
From September 22-23, MSPs on the committee will be able to see salmon farming in action during a visit to Scottish Sea Farms facilities on the west coast, before sector representatives give evidence on September 25. The final session, on October 2, will involve Scottish Rural Affairs Secretary Mairi Gougeon answering questions about sustainable growth in the sector.
Meanwhile, salmon companies are working with regulators to trial a more streamlined planning process, as part of the independent Griggs regulatory review, conducted more than two years ago.
While they report progress in this consenting pilot, with a coordinated approach paving the way for faster decisions, the sector must still contend with a trenchant anti-salmon farming lobby.
Scotland’s newest salmon farmer, Organic Sea Harvest (OSH), learnt on August 7 that its revised application for two additional farms on Skye had been rejected by Highland councillors,
despite the approval of planning officers and widespread support in the local area.
The latest rejection, as in the previous application by OSH in 2021, was based mainly on the perceived visual impact of the farms, although they would lie within view of a coastal path used only by an average of 5.4 people a day.
OSH can appeal to the Scottish government to try to get the ruling reversed so it can go ahead and develop its business, which already brings much needed jobs to the region.
Perhaps presciently, one of the RAIC sessions in June heard from Professor Nick Owens, a member of the Scottish Science Advisory Council, of the ‘imbalance’ that can skew the ‘community voice’, with well organised anti-farming groups making more noise than other locals.
Salmon farmers continue to invest in educating the public about their work and this month Mowi – which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year – opened a new visitor centre at its Scottish hatchery in Inchmore.
This summer has also seen a general election, of course, which brought Labour into power and, from Scotland, an influx of 37 Labour MPs. The new government wasted no time in talking up the value of Scottish salmon exports, with Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds pledging support for exploring opportunities to increase Scottish salmon sales to the EU, a move welcomed by trade body Salmon Scotland.
First wellboat
In other news this month, Mull based Inverlussa Marine Services, which supplies workboats to the salmon industry in Scotland, acquired its first wellboat. The former Ronja Viking, currently undergoing modifications in Norway, was formerly owned by Solvtrans, the world’s biggest wellboat operator, which put in orders for its 49th and 50th vessels this month. The two battery-hybrid boats will each have a well capacity of 3,000m³ and be specially equipped for the transfer of smolts.
Inverlussa also ordered a new hybrid workboat from Scottish yard Macduff, designed for bigger salmon farms in more exposed sites. There to witness the contract signing at Macduff Harbour was Scotland’s Deputy First Minister, Kate Forbes, who welcomed the deal, which is expected to create an additional six jobs within Inverlussa, bringing the total number of employees to 140.
Elsewhere, scientists have been busy, too, announcing progress made in the development of a sea lice vaccine. Erik Slinde, director of research at the Institute of Marine Research (IMR) in Bergen, said that in small-scale initial trials, salmon saw a 70 per cent reduction in European sea lice, and a 92 per cent reduction in Chilean sea lice.
Slinde’s team has been working on a vaccine that targets a protein crucial to the lice’s digestion. Other research teams are also exploring peptide-based vaccines, focusing on specific proteins essential to the lice’s survival, reported Salmon Business. One team from the Moredun Research Institute and the University of Stirling is using artificial intelligence to identify these proteins and design an effective vaccine.
In another exciting collaboration, researchers from Scotland, Norway and the Faroe Islands are working on a tool to validate sea lice dispersion models. The project, known as SAVED – Sustainable Aquaculture: Validating Ectoparasite Dispersal (Models) – aims to produce a standardised system that could lead to more accurate predictions of the potential risk to wild fish populations from sea lice.
There were mixed fortunes in the land-based sector this month: Norway’s Salmon Evolution delivered a record harvest of around 1,600 tonnes in Q2, Fish Farming Expert reported.
In the US, Atlantic Sapphire harvested 1,150 tonnes in the first quarter of this year and has set a first phase production goal of 9,500 tonnes. In July, though, founder and former CEO Johan Andreassen sold all his shares in the company, along with co-founder Bjorn-Vegard Lovik, reported Intrafish.
In British Columbia, salmon farmers, whose sector is being phased out by Justin Trudeau’s government, are concerned over delays in federal Canada’s transition plans that buy them a little time.
The government’s proposed ban on ocean-based salmon farms in the province by 2029 ‘flies in the face of 10 government studies and a plethora of other research which continue to show that current ocean salmon farms pose no more than minimal risk to wild Pacific stocks’, wrote Fabian Dawson of SeaWestNews.
Against this backdrop, Canada has experienced the greatest worldwide production decline in farmed salmon, falling by 17 per cent compared to the previous year, according to data and analytics specialist Kontali.
In fact, it was a surge in the wild catch that drove up the total global supply of salmonids, including small trout, by seven per cent year-over-year to 5.2 million tonnes in 2023.
The total supply of wild-caught salmonid species amounted to 1.09 million tonnes, a 57 per cent increase, primarily driven by pink salmon, which reached 690,000 tonnes, up 169 per cent.
In contrast, farmed salmonid supply remained relatively stable, with a slight decrease of 0.8 per cent. In the Atlantic salmon sector, harvest volumes decreased for the second consecutive year, dropping by two per cent to 2.79 million tonnes in 2023.