Cause for concern: fish health and welfare
Norway is at last starting to accept that, when it comes to looking after the fish at its farms, all is not well.
Just before Christmas, the Oslo government published its animal welfare white paper report, which covers everything from livestock and pets to fish. It concluded that salmon mortality was far too high. The last such report was 20 years ago.
The country, which invented modern salmon farming and turned it into a global industry, has to do more; that much is clear.
Action must be taken, Fisheries Minister Marianne Naess said bluntly on presentation of the report.
She wants salmon mortality dramatically brought down from the current average of 15% to 5% or less, which would represent a significant reduction.
In short, she is insisting that the fish farming industry overhauls its whole approach to welfare.
The government also believes the industry will have to spend a lot of money and use a great deal of innovation if it is to achieve its goal.
Naess believes this can be achieved through better sea lice management, adopting more semi-closed cages and moving further north, where the waters are colder and sea lice pressures are lower. Adopting more AI technology is another recommendation.
Agriculture Minister Geir Pollestad believes that Norway has all the conditions needed to become a global leader in this area.
Possibly more surprising is that the aquaculture industry and the opposition Conservative Party both agree, to some degree, with the Labour-led government.
Conservative Leader Erna Solberg, who may well return as Prime Minister next year, was pointedly critical regarding the lack of action under the present administration.
She said: “When they point to too little time, I wonder what they have been doing for the last three years.”
With a general election in nine months, she also took the opportunity to wade in with a general attack on the government’s handling of salmon farming in general.
“We have to clean up the mess,” she declared.
“The aquaculture tax must be lowered. We would have liked to have something else, but now the entire industry has adapted. I don’t think we benefit from a new round of bureaucracy there, which is why we have set it at 15%.
“Then the hopeless Price Council must be removed, which creates more bureaucracy both for the state and for each individual company. I see no reason why the aquaculture industry cannot operate with internal prices, as all other industries are allowed to do.”
The employer organisation Seafood Norway was more diplomatic, describing the report as “an important day for fish welfare”.
“We share the government’s demand that the welfare of fish must be put at the centre,” says Director of Aquaculture at Seafood Norway, Jon Arne Grøttum.
“Together with our members, we will thoroughly review this report and come back with our input in the consultation round.”
He added that several of the follow-up points will be addressed in the Aquaculture Report that the government will present in the spring.
That mortality will decrease is indisputable, Grøttum argues. Unacceptable incidents must have consequences.
How this is to be ensured is an important dialogue between authorities and management, says Karoline Skaar Amthor, Head of Environment and Health at Seafood Norway.
She argues: “Society must have confidence that fish farmers make the right decisions at the right time and place.”
Northern perspective
In fact, Seafood Norway is now working on its own plan to improve welfare in the north where some of the problems have been most acute. It has already convened a meeting with the leading salmon farmers in the region, at Havbruk Nord annual conference in Tromsø last month.
Bård Skjelstad from the Norwegian Food Safety Authority said: “ Everything has been said; everything is on the table.”
At the meeting, Lerøy Aurora demonstrated how it had taken action to improve fish welfare explaining that by minimising contact, it had achieved a survival rate of more than 95%. This would meet the target set in the Animal Welfare Report, but it is way ahead of the industry as a whole.
The Seafood Council’s Regional Manager, Kine Mari Karlsen, said it was clear the industry had been under a sharp spotlight through what were two difficult years.
She believes 2025 is entering as a particularly crucial year for the aquaculture industry with an upcoming aquaculture report expected this spring, and a parliamentary elections in September.
Aquaculture Director Alf-Helge Aarskog pointed out that it is lice that cause most of the welfare problems.
The former Mowi manager now believes that one way to increase production is to separate lice from salmon, cost-effectively.
“During my time in the industry, we have tried everything there is to combat lice. Without lice, there would be a mortality rate of [only] 5-7% in open cages,” he contended.
He concludes: “The work will require money, effort and collaboration with authorities and the R&D community. We need to look at the entire life cycle of the salmon and improve smolt quality.”
Karoline Skaar Amthor said: “My experience is that we are now working even more closely on the issues, and we see that companies on several fronts are taking action and taking measures that work.
“The Animal Welfare Report has been well received by the industry. We support the main messages in the report.”
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