2023-12-30 11:12:39
More than half of the world’s Atlantic salmon production comes from Norway. This industry brings in billions of euros, but environmental defenders are worried regarding the pollution it causes and the disappearance of wild salmon.
Salmon farming is one of the most automated fish farming industries. It starts when the eggs hatch. In a state-of-the-art nursery in Forsand, the fry change freshwater tanks as they grow. All transfers are done by pumps which suck up the water and the fish.
“In this nursery, we have 2.8 million eggs. The oxygen level, the pumps, everything is controlled by sensors and computers,” the company director explains in the show Tout un monde.
Factories specialize in slaughtering salmon. “It’s a high-speed factory. We keep the fish in storage cages before they’re caught. We pump 160 fish per minute to this area where we kill them. Then we cool them and we bleeds. From this stage until the boxes arrive on the pallet, only three minutes pass,” explains the director of a slaughtering factory.
A fish “calibrated for breeding”
These living conditions are far from those of wild salmon. And for good reason, this farmed salmon was created in the 1970s by crossing different Atlantic salmon, of which only the most lucrative genetic qualities were preserved, such as rapid growth.
For the author Simen Saetre, it is even a new fish. This is the title of the shocking book that he published in Norway and the United States.
Farmed salmon have a very fragile heart and die when stressed. It is very sensitive to diseases, parasites, bacteria
Simen Saetre, author of “The New Fish”
“They made a calibrated fish for breeding, to make money. It is very different from the one found in nature. There are many consequences that they did not foresee. For example , his heart is very fragile and he dies when he is stressed. He is very sensitive to diseases, parasites, bacteria.”
The problems he alludes to are numerous. The sea is polluted by the droppings of these salmon and sanitary products. Millions of salmon escaped and spawned with their wild cousins. They transmitted diseases to them and their offspring are more fragile. Salmon lice also infest cages.
“These problems can only be solved by less intensive production. This means thinking more regarding the condition of the fish and earning a little less money,” says Simen Saetre.
Willingness to improve
Norway produces more than half of the world’s Atlantic salmon and aquaculture exports are second only to those of gas and oil.
Norway wants to promote this cutting-edge industry, but also the quality of its products. A third of its farms now meet the international ASC label – whose labels are increasingly seen in supermarkets – which imposes strict standards on breeding conditions.
Some salmon producers, such as the giant Cermak, have announced that they want to convert 100% to the ASC label. The industry wants to green its image, because it feels the tide is turning. In Norway, the government has just imposed a 25% surcharge on manufacturers, because they use the common good that is the fjords.
In Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego or the American state of Washington, the decision is even more radical. Salmon farming in open cages has simply been banned.
Frédéric Faux/asch
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