A bumper year: Tavish Scott looks back over 2024
Scottish salmon has had an extraordinarily successful year and 2025 could be even better, says Tavish Scott, Chief Executive of Salmon Scotland
2024 has been an amazingly successful period for the Scottish salmon sector.
Here is the evidence: survival rates and fish welfare are at record highs; sales and exports are booming with growing demand from consumers at home and abroad for the nutritious fish we raise; antibiotic use remains low; and the sector continues to grow responsibly adding new and relocated sea sites, creating jobs and business opportunities for rural companies and the wider Scottish supply chain.
Game-changing investments of £1bn made by our production companies are helping to transform salmon farming. This investment is driving higher health and welfare standards while safeguarding the marine environment.
We had a new government at Westminster elected in July. Since then, the UK Government has started to act on some of the asks we made before the general election.
We still need progress on introducing electronic export health certificates (EHCs) and a general smoothing of the exports process. The Scotland Office’s “Brand Scotland” approach is part of this – an initiative to grow new markets for Scotland’s top products and services.
Trade will be the issue of 2025. The Trump presidency, and the accompanying tariffs that he has promised the American electorate, risk creating disruption across the globe.
In our world of seafood, it would be fair to assume that Chilean and Norwegian imports to the USA will be significantly impacted.
Will the UK Government therefore pivot to a pro-European trade outlook more than has been the case since Brexit? That would have advantages for Scottish salmon given the EU remains our largest marketplace.
The USA will remain a hugely important market and Scotland’s premium salmon product will be sought after, despite any barriers to market entry that a new administration may put in place.
Here in Scotland we continue to have great support from Scottish Government ministers, even if the progress we need to streamline regulation is glacial.
The overall success of the sector through 2024 is very much a team effort.
It is driven by a combination of the farmers out every day in all weather, the vets and biological teams, all the staff at our producer companies, the managers who are investing in the future, every part of our supply chain right across Scotland, and the dedicated Salmon Scotland team who work so hard behind the scenes to fight our corner.
Everyone in our sector has a positive story to tell.
And many in our workforce have done precisely that over the past 12 months.
The anti-farming campaign is failing
As we look back on 2024 and look ahead to 2025, we have much to be positive about.
But we will never satisfy those who want to shut our sector down and make us all unemployed.
The pile-on by orchestrated by well-organised, well-financed individuals and groups continued throughout 2024.
Let me be clear – their campaign isn’t working. A cursory glance at our sales figures will tell you that.
Demand for salmon continues to increase, with more and more nutritionists and chefs encouraging people to put healthy salmon on their plates.
The better we do, the more vocal the campaigners are in trying to close us down – they don’t actually care about fish welfare (if they did, they wouldn’t put the health and safety of our farms at risk), they just care about getting publicity.
They are driven by egos, not genuine environmental concerns.
One activist even asked a farming company for a payoff in return for not publishing a smear against them (which was of course rebuffed).
One has been banned by the Scottish courts from an increasing number of farm sites after leaving our workforce feeling intimidated.
And in 2024 another eco-warrior came on the scene who camped out next to one of our farms for more than a month, filming and then trying to make it look like something it was not.
These urban zealots may get the media attention they so crave, but they will never convince people to stop eating something that is so tasty, so nutritious, and so good for the planet.
A disagreeable bunch, it’s no wonder they are now fighting among themselves, driven by their own vanity and jostling for cash on offer from vegan campaign groups that exist only to ban salmon and other animal farming.
For some of these individuals campaigning against salmon farming is lucrative business, and rather than welcoming kindred spirits they view each other as competitors for the pot of cash on the table.
It would be funny if they didn’t cause so much distress for farm staff who should never have to face harassment for simply doing their jobs.
We have stressed this point to the handful of journalists who lap up the nonsense fed to them.
Most journalists are thoroughly decent and professional, but some bring their own preconceptions to the office.
Good news, like a significant reduction in antibiotic use or improvements in fish survival, doesn’t suit the narrative or the click-bait headlines.
As a case in point, recent media coverage of best practice mort retrieval at a salmon farm, and by the BBC in particular, was disgraceful. As was explained to journalists, standard operating procedures, required by the RSPCA, were being followed.
The BBC’s coverage is the subject of an on-going formal complaint from our sector.
I imagine we will continue to face negative headlines in 2025, but one thing is certain: this will not distract us from the sustainable growth of our sector.
The Scottish salmon sector is one of the most open and transparent sectors operating in Scotland, yet I struggle to think of another industry that is subjected to as much scrutiny as we are.
Despite the myriad challenges facing our rural affairs and islands, Holyrood’s committee of the same name decided to investigate changes to the sector since 2018.
The inquiry was established to consider progress since the 2018 report. Spoiler alert: the sector has made massive changes and improvements since then, including investing almost £1bn in measures to improve fish health and welfare and manage a climate changing marine environment.
Since the committee started hearing evidence in June, some sessions have been unfocused with attempts to distract MSPs by lurid media claims and letter-writing campaigns by activists.
When MSPs visited a salmon farm in September, activists filmed them covertly and without their knowledge or consent. We still don’t know who leaked information about their visit to the activists, but we know the motivation.
So will MSPs take the easy road to criticise the sector and government, or will they come up with genuine solutions than help shift the policy and regulatory landscape to make salmon farming even better? We obviously hope for the latter.
Either way, in Holyrood and the Commons, government and the leadership of the main political parties understand the importance of the Scottish salmon sector to the economy, to their constituents and to Scotland’s place in the world. They can separate the reality of salmon farming from the noise of the activists.
It is the job of Salmon Scotland to face these political and media headwinds on behalf of our member companies.
Despite everything that has been thrown at us by our detractors, 2024 has been a really strong year for the sector. 2025 is looking like an even better year.
The salmon farming sector in Scotland is resilient, is here to stay, and will not be pushed off course by the usual noises.
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