Norwegian salmon farms are taking huge amounts of wild fish from West Africa, mining the food security of the region, according to a report from the U.K.-based NGO Feedback. The analysis comes as the industry faces a wave of public opposition after revelations of high mortality rates and the sale of fish deemed unfit for human consumption, along with accusations of antitrust violations by the European Commission.
The report, titled “Blue Empire” was produced with other organisations including Greenpeace Africa and the West African Association for the Development of Artisan fishing and published in January. It quantifies the use of fishmeal and fish oil imported from Mauritania, Senegal and the Gambia in the production of feed for salmon farms in Norway, the world’s main producer of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar).
According to the report, in 2020, Norwegian salmon farms required almost 2 million metric tons of edible wild fish to produce fish oil intended for feeds that produced nearly 1.5 million metric tons of farmed salmon.
Big Footprint
Up to 7% of these wild fish (123,000-144,000 metric tons) were small pelagic species caught along the coasts of West Africa, where they could have fed between 2.5 million and 4 million people, according to the report. Other major suppliers of fish oil to Norway are Denmark, the United States, Peru and Iceland.
“The Norwegian salmon farming industry, which is the biggest in the world, has an enormous feed footprint and a huge appetite for wild caught fish,” Natasha Hurley, director of campaigns at Feedback, told Mongabay.
Norway exports most of its farmed salmon: In 2023, the country exported 1.2 million metric tons, valued at $11.6 billion, with the majority going to Poland, France and the United States, according to the Norwegian Seafood Council, an industry marketing group. An increasing share of its exports goes to emerging markets, such as China, Hurley said.
In recent years, the industry has described itself as a model of sustainability: “Out of the 17 SDGs, the industry can contribute significantly to at least ten,” the Norwegian company Mowi, the biggest salmon producer globally, wrote in its latest industry handbook, referring to the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Call to halt farms
The Feedback report takes a different perspective, recommending the Norwegian government to “halt the growth of Norway’s salmon farming sector” and “ensure the domestic farmed salmon industry does not undermine its global development goals.”
The NGO based its calculations on public commercial data and company reports by the four companies that together supply close to 100% of the feed used in Norwegian salmon farming: Mowi, Dutch-owned Skretting, U.S.-based Cargill and Denmark-based BioMar. According to Feedback’s analysis, all of these companies sourced fish oil made from small pelagics caught in FAO’s major fishing area 34, located off West Africa.
Note: For full article go to https://news.mongabay.com/2024/02/norwegian-salmon-farms-gobble-up-fish-that-could-feed-millions-in-africa-report/
Shane Jones has got it all wrong over fish farming. King Salmon in Marlborough Sounds has floundered (excuse pun) with high fish deaths and the promise of jobs and export earnings not eventuating.
Jones should be plugging for better management of the natural fishery and ditch the quota system which lets big corporates like Shane’s mates in Talleys, gobble up quota and dominate the resource.
Given his close ties with the corporate fishing companies (political donations in past), should Jones be minister of fisheries?
The one competitive advantage NZKS has is that Pacific salmon comprise a minority of salmon farmed globally and therefore command a price premium.
NZKS has been very successful at promoting itself to Ministers, but is it the glamour industry it presents itself to be?
Farmed salmon rely on a total formulated diet of around 10% fat, 3% unsaturated fish oil, 40 % protein, with the balance carbohydrate that fish cannot use, (binder).
The final product is very much a case of “rubbish in, rubbish” out so there is a limit of the amount of animal waste that can be substituted for quality fish meal.
Saturated animal fats for example cannot be utilized by the fish and simply accumulate in the flesh. The white striations comprise this “unhealthy” animal fat.
NZKS did aim to produce a quality product, but this requires a high content of fish meal which is not available locally due to the high mercury levels found naturally in wild NZ marine fish.
It is possible to fudge the content of unsaturated fats through feeding this costly component in the few weeks prior to harvest to meet label contents statements.
Some Norwegian product should come with a health warning.
It is misleading to claim the product does not require vaccines when these have become standard on NZ salmon farms.
Who would know about antibiotic useage given the high mortality due to bacterial disease?
NZ salmon farms do not use fish from West Africa, but sardines and other fish from Peru and Chile. These species are over fished to supply the Chilean fish farms.
When the cost of imported feed is subtracted from the other costs associated with salmon farming, the overseas earnings generated by this industry appear much less attractive.
Apart from growing Pacific (King) salmon, NZ salmon farms have few competitive advantages other than from favored treatment by MPI and government Ministers who have been sold on the myth that salmon farming will become a NZ$ billion dollar industry.
This may have happened through massive global investment in Norway, Scotland, and North America, but at a huge cost to the environment and wild recreational salmon and sea trout fisheries. The weight of money invested and support of governments is not impressing locals whose sea lochs and fjords are being trashed by industrial farming. The anti salmon farming lobby is significant and justified in terms of animal welfare, genetic pollution, disease, sea lice, and chemical residues.
I would suggest that there are other aquaculture ventures that hold more promise.
Several documentaries on You Tube have highlighted that the fish pellet composition includes salmon flesh deemed unfit for human consumption. These salmon are from the Baltic and contained unacceptable levels of radiation from waterways near Chernobyl discharge waters. Although unfit for human consumption they are used here as animal feed. In this case salmon for human consumption; go figure.
Shane Jones, contrary to his opinion, can be wrong. Look at his billion trees programme which resulted in productive beef and sheep farms turned into boring monoculture of pinus radiata.
I think he is wrong to think fish farms are a panacea for mismanagement of the ocean’s fin fish resource.
I’ve recalled in the past the words of an American freshwater expert on trout farming. He told me fish farming is “capital intensive, high risk and marginally economic.”
In other words it needs much money and is fraught with risk of diseases and is not a money winner.