Farmed Salmon Archives - Saving Seafood

Salmon Farms in Patagonia Face Growing Opposition

August 14, 2024 — The sea is calm as dusk descends on Tarsicio Antezana’s home island of Quinchao in southern Chile. In the distance, snow-capped volcanoes turn a deep violet with the setting sun.

It’s a serene sight — except for the one thing Mr. Antezana, a retired oceanographer, cannot ignore. Not far out in the water, a strip of small, rectangular objects stretches across the sea, swaying ever so slightly with the tide. These structures might not seem like much, but Mr. Antezana knows what lies beneath the surface: a salmon farm.

Below the water, high-density net cages teem with thousands of salmon. Farms like this one are common in Los Lagos, the primary aquaculture region in Chile. The South American country is the top exporter of farmed salmon to the United States. But the popular fish are not native to this place, and many environmentalists and activists have long complained that the farms are damaging Chilean ecosystems and threatening native wildlife.

Large-scale salmon farming began in Chile in the 1970s. A young scientist at the time, Mr. Antezana was asked to evaluate the viability of farming the fish. He advised the government to establish base-line studies and to be wary of ecological and health risks.

For more than four decades, Mr. Antezana has watched the industry grow into one of the world’s leading producers of farmed salmon. Last year, farmed salmon was Chile’s second-largest export, generating $6.5 billion in revenue.

Read the full article at The New York Times

Proximar nets JPY 8.8 billion loan for RAS salmon farm in Japan

February 13, 2023 — Bergen, Norway-based Proximar Seafood has secured JPY 8.8 billion (USD 66 million, EUR 61 million) in financing via a loan offer from a syndicate that includes two Japanese banks for the land-based salmon farm it’s building near Tokyo, Japan.

The offer consisted of a highly confident letter along with a term sheet – which the company said should be “considered a strong statement of comfort from the banks” on providing the financing the company needs for its salmon recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) facility, currently under construction in in Shizuoka Prefecture. The names of the banks were not released by Proximar. Proximar signed a contract with RAS specialist AquaMaof in early 2020 for a design and build of a facility with a 5,300 MT annual production capacity of gutted salmon in its first phase.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Farmed salmon supply will remain flat in 2023, even as demand continues to increase

January 19, 2023 — The latest projections from market data firm Kontali indicate the global supply of farmed Atlantic salmon will remain relatively flat in 2023, even as demand is projected to increase.

The data, revealed during a panel at the National Fisheries Institute Global Seafood Market Conference – running from January 15 to 19 in La Quinta, California, U.S.A. – indicates farmed Atlantic salmon will see a roughly 1 percent increase in supply. That number, according to Kontali Chief Analyst Ragnar Nystøyl, is assuming no biological issues or unexpected events cause a drop in production.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

‘Salmon Wars’ in the media undermines sustainability

September 8, 2022 — To promote their new book, Salmon Wars, the Dark Underbelly of our Favorite Fish, writers Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins published an article attacking salmon aquaculture in Time Magazine. The article, 3 Reasons to Avoid Farmed Salmon, recommended that readers completely avoid all open net pen-reared Atlantic salmon. “Farmed Atlantic salmon from open-net pens is off our menu and should be off yours,” they concluded.

The seafood industry and sustainable aquaculture advocates were quick to rebut, with the National Fisheries Institute and the National Aquaculture Association posting a thorough fact check last week. Saving Seafood and industry expert Jennifer Bushman also added her frustrations.

Read the full article at Sustainable Fisheries

Seafood industry fires back at articles, book criticizing farmed salmon

July 29, 2022 — The seafood industry is firing back against recently published articles and books that are taking shots at the farmed salmon industry.

A recently published book, Salmon Wars, the Dark Underbelly of our Favorite Fish, has been gaining attention from some media outlets, including Bloomberg, which listed it among the 10 best summer books shedding light on “today’s most-pressing issues.” Written by Pulitzer Price-winning journalist Douglas Frantz and his wife – accomplished investigative journalist Catherine Collins – the book purports to expose the “dark underbelly of our favorite fish.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

NFI, National Aquaculture Association Respond to TIME Story on Farmed Salmon

July 28, 2022 — The National Fisheries Institute (NFI) and National Aquaculture Association are not staying quiet about a recent story published by editorial giant TIME about farmed salmon.

The story in question is entitled “3 Reasons to Avoid Farmed Salmon,” and was written by investigative journalists Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins, a husband and wife team who recently published a book titled “Salmon Wars: The Dark Underbelly of our Favorite Fish.” The book claims that salmon are “crammed into parasite-plagued cages and fed a chemical-laced diet.” And in their story for TIME, the authors lead the reader to believe that farmed salmon is not healthy, not sustainable, and on top of that is harming the environment.

“A recent column in TIME about farmed salmon appears to have attracted little or no editorial oversight as it was rife with inaccuracies masquerading as opinion,” NFI said in response. “This is not the first time this once vaunted publication has botched reporting on seafood.”

There is a war being waged against science by activists that would prefer decisions be based on politics, anecdotes and shameless misrepresentations and the authors deliver on this approach by basing their arguments on false factoids pulled from the news or discredited old studies in place of real facts. Here are just a few examples:

FALSE: Salmon are raised in “crammed” cages.

FACT: Salmon are grown in sea cages that contain less than 4% fish and more than 96% water.

FALSE: Salmon are “doused with antibiotics”.

FACT: Salmon are raised with little or no antibiotics under the watch of veterinarians. Farmers have a stewardship responsibility to care for the animals they raise. Farm-raised salmon receive the least medicines out of all the most popular animal proteins we buy at the grocery store.

FALSE: “A single meal per month exceeds contaminant levels set by the World Health Organization”.

FACT: Farm-raised salmon is very low in contaminants and meets or exceeds standards established by the Food and Drug Administration and the World Health Organization. Salmon is one of the world’s best sources of heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids and is welcome on the menu of every G7 country, the European Union and across North America.

FALSE: “A toxic stew [under farms] drives away marine life”.

FACT: Salmon farmers know that pristine marine cage conditions are essential for high-quality salmon. Farm locations are carefully selected to ensure the ocean bottom is protected from significant nutrient loading by placing the farm in deep and fast-moving water. Farmers use underwater cameras to properly disperse feed, they carefully monitor the ocean bottom, and, like a farmer’s field, sites are given time to rest before being used again.

FALSE: “Salmon die at a rate of 15 percent, much worse than 5 percent for chickens.”

FACT: Wild salmon have a 5% survival rate. Farm-raised salmon have an 85% survival rate over the two-year period in which they are raised. Broiler chickens live for less than two months before being placed on a rotisserie, making this comparison a misrepresentation at best.

Read the full article at Seafood News

US companies file class-action suit alleging price-fixing by Norwegian farmed salmon firms

April 25, 2019 — A class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of U.S. direct purchasers of Norwegian farmed salmon is accusing multiple Norwegian firms including Mowi, Grieg Seafood, Lerøy Seafood, and SalMar of conspiring to fix the prices of farmed salmon.

The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday, 23 April, alleges the major players in Norway’s farmed salmon industry exchanged competitively sensitive information among themselves, with the aim of artificially controlling the price of farm-raised salmon bought by U.S. seafood buyers, a violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

The lawsuit is largely based on an ongoing investigation by the European Commission into “suspected anti-competitive practices” in the farmed Atlantic salmon sector in Europe, first made public in February 2019. The investigation included raids by E.C. officials of the Scottish and Dutch corporate offices of several seafood companies based in Norway, including Mowi, Grieg Seafood, Lerøy Seafood, and SalMar.

A letter sent by the E.C. to one of the companies, obtained by SeafoodSource, revealed the E.C. approved a decision on 6 February, 2019, to investigate information received “from different actors operating at different levels in the salmon market” alleging that some Norwegian producers “participate or have participated in anti-competitive agreements and/or concerted practices related to different ways of price coordination in order to sustain and possibly increase prices of farmed Norwegian Atlantic salmon.”

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Florida (Miami Division) on behalf of Mentor, Ohio-based Euclid Fish Company, according to Arthur Bailey of Hausfeld LLP, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys. Numerous other similar suits have and will continue to be filed containing similar allegations, including by Schneider’s Seafood & Meats of Cheektowaga, New York, and by Euro USA Inc. of Cleveland, Ohio, Bailey told SeafoodSource. Within the next month, the cases will be combined into one larger class-action suit including all direct purchasers of Norwegian farmed salmon, Bailey said. The case will be heard by James Lawrence King.

Read the full story at Seafood Source