40,000 tonne land farm plan finally gets green light

The company behind the project is Helgeland Miljøfisk which plans to build the 40,000 tonne flow-through facility on Toftøya in Brønnøy around 100 kilometres south of Bodo.

The Food Safety Authority announced on Friday afternoon that was reversing an earlier decision to reject the proposal and are approving Helgeland Miljøfisk’s land-based venture.

Helgeland Miljøfisk said this move means the facility, when fully developed, will eventually provide between 200 and 300 jobs.

It added: “Now only one permit is missing from the State Administrator of Nordland before Nordland County Council can issue the concession.”

Helgeland Miljøfisk CEO Sten Roald Lorentzen said: “Finally! We have been waiting for this message for a long time. It has been a long process, over three years! I am relieved and happy that the Norwegian Food Safety Authority has accepted our view and is granting us permission.”

The Authority has previously come out against the proposal on a number of occasions, the most recent being just three months ago in January. At that time, it justified the rejection by saying that Helgeland Miljøfisk did not plan to clean the intake water, had not planned to have a roof over the land-based farming pools, or had established good enough plans related to internal control and biosecurity.

“In retrospect, we have worked intensively to get good enough solutions in place, and we therefore expected a yes,” Lorentzen added. “ It is incredibly good to get it in black and white.”

Lorentzen said he was now crossing his fingers that the State Administrator in Nordland will also soon give the go-ahead.

One of the lead stakeholders in Helgeland Miljøfisk is Aquaculture Innovation, which is also a co-owner of Bue Salmon AS in Bulandet, Norway, another land-based salmon farmer.