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Report
Can tech solve salmon industry's biggest problem?
DW (English)
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11/19/2024
Salmon farming is a booming industry with big problems. From the widespread use of chemicals, to threats to wild salmon stocks, it's marred by mass die-offs and deadly diseases. Can tech solve its crippling problems?
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00:00
Salmon farming is a billion-dollar business, and sales figures continue to rise.
00:07
Norway and Chile are the biggest players.
00:10
We visit one of the biggest salmon farms in the world,
00:13
which has invested in new technology,
00:15
and a whistleblower from Chile reports on the industry's dark side.
00:23
Find out why on Transforming Business.
00:27
In recent decades, one scandal after another.
00:31
Mass salmon die-offs, deadly infectious diseases.
00:35
The fish are treated with antibiotics and chemicals to fight parasites and disease.
00:40
Is it still the same narrative?
00:42
We take a look at Norway, the world's largest salmon producer.
00:47
The profits of fish farms there have risen massively since 2015
00:52
to over 3.5 billion euros in 2022.
01:02
It may look like a ship, but the company says it's the world's biggest fish farm.
01:07
It's run by Nordlax, a huge aquaculture farm in northern Norway.
01:12
The nets reach 56 meters deep into the sea.
01:15
Around 2.5 million salmon swim around in them.
01:18
The farm has been designed so that fewer fish get sick or die,
01:22
according to the sales and marketing director.
01:28
Normally we run at mortality rates, I would say around 5%, 4 to 6, over the last five years.
01:35
The fact that mortality rates are so low at the farm is due in part to this laser gun.
01:41
But more on that later.
01:45
The average mortality rate throughout Norway is significantly higher at 17%.
01:50
One problem with aquaculture? Parasites, such as the salmon louse,
01:55
which repeatedly attack the fish.
01:57
It's a crustacean that can kill the salmon.
01:59
That's why Nordlax gives the infested farmed salmon freshwater baths.
02:04
And they also use chemical baths to remove the salmon lice.
02:07
But this can make the animals sick.
02:12
One of the main reasons is handling due to treatment against salmon lice.
02:20
To remove salmon lice now entails a lot of treatment,
02:23
and that treatment is stressful for the fish.
02:25
And then they can, for instance, develop wounds afterwards.
02:29
This is Erik Bering. His institute checks the health of the fish.
02:36
There's another problem.
02:37
Farmed salmon keep escaping from the nets and transmitting the salmon louse to wild salmon.
02:42
When farmed in wild salmon mate, their offspring displace the wild salmon stalks.
02:48
This is another reason why the wild Atlantic salmon is among the world's endangered species.
02:58
This farm uses a laser beam to remove salmon lice.
03:01
It's supposed to cut the infection rate and stop the fish from becoming too weak.
03:08
The farm is also located in the open sea, not in a fjord.
03:12
The moving freshwater is supposed to reduce the disease infestation.
03:16
Sediment and excrement are washed away more easily by the ocean currents.
03:20
But this is only standard practice on this farm.
03:23
Nordlax says that it also operates 40 conventional farms in fjords.
03:27
Like the entire industry, the company is under pressure.
03:30
It has to invest in environmentally friendly facilities, and it can afford to do so.
03:37
Global farmed salmon revenue grew from over 13 billion euros in 2017 to more than 20 billion in 2022.
03:45
There's good money to be made from salmon.
03:48
Ingeberg Nordlax's owner has made a fortune worth hundreds of millions of euros.
03:53
It's a similar story for billionaires Gustav Witze and his son Gustav Magner of the Salmar company.
03:59
Aquaculture is growing more and more compared with fishing, although globally most fish are still caught.
04:08
But that is changing.
04:10
Aquaculture production surpassed fishing in 2023, with 97 million tons.
04:23
But fish farming is controversial.
04:26
When it comes to salmon, many ask whether the species is suited to aquaculture.
04:30
The reason? It's a predatory fish that needs both a certain amount of fish in its feed as well as soy.
04:50
After Norway, Chile is a leading producer of farmed salmon, followed by Britain, Canada and the Faroe Islands, which belong to Denmark.
05:01
In Chile, salmon companies and investors from Norway such as Schermach, Movi and Salmar have expanded into the country.
05:09
Even conglomerate Mitsubishi operates there.
05:16
In a key salmon farming region in Chile, we meet whistleblower Mario Ángel Uribe.
05:22
He worked in an aquaculture facility owned by Nova Austral until 2021 and publicized the salmon farm's breach of environmental regulations.
05:52
The Chilean Environmental Supervisory Authority, SMA, imposed a heavy fine on Nova, and they had to close some farms.
06:23
But another problem affects Chile's entire salmon farming industry.
06:28
Antibiotics are used on a massive scale to fight infectious disease.
06:33
Critics, like veterinarian Lisbeth Fandamer, says this endangers both humans and animals.
06:53
More antibiotics are used in Chile's fish farms than anywhere else in the world.
06:59
339 tons in 2023.
07:02
There is less systematic monitoring and fewer sanctions than in Europe.
07:07
These conditions have made it easy for salmon farmers from Norway to expand into Chile.
07:12
But what might better monitoring of salmon farms look like?
07:17
For example, Norway has been developing an interactive monitoring system for about 10 years.
07:23
It receives data every week.
07:25
The hundreds of salmon farms in the country are obliged to enter comprehensive data on various fish diseases.
07:32
And there is a traffic light system.
07:34
Red production zones means salmon lice infestation or that infections per fish are too high.
07:41
The traffic light system is such that it defines whether you are allowed to increase your production or not.
07:47
And this is based on the way that the different companies, farmers, control sea lice.
07:58
This is virologist Einstein Evansen.
08:01
He researches salmon diseases.
08:04
But how reliable is this system, which is based on self-reporting?
08:08
Authorities conduct random checks, which can lead to sanctions, fines or prison sentences.
08:15
Any disease, treatment, diagnosis of notifiable diseases and so on.
08:34
Occasionally we go out and count together.
08:38
We make them count first and then we count and we compare the numbers.
08:43
That's Lisa Charlotta Råkonus. Her team monitors fish health in Norway.
08:51
Mostly it is correct. And we have some that is not correct.
08:57
And it depends on the severity of the wrongdoing here.
09:06
Chile's Economic Affairs Ministry also wants to improve the monitoring system
09:10
for the country's hundreds of breeding facilities.
09:16
One such measure is that the farms must report on the amount of antibiotics
09:20
or other chemicals they use.
09:23
But how does the monitoring work?
09:29
It's of course difficult to, let's say, know in detail.
09:36
But the numbers from Chile have been more and more precise over the last years
09:42
and they have been more and more detailed.
09:45
But what does this mean for consumers?
09:47
How can they find out which fish they are buying in the supermarket?
09:51
There are many different quality labels.
09:53
They all define global standards for the farming of fish.
09:57
Companies that want to gain certification from the Aquaculture Stewardship Council, or ASC,
10:02
must comply with specific upper limits for infectious disease or fish mortality.
10:09
So we call it impose certain standards.
10:12
And that is always positive and always needed.
10:17
But it should also be a motivation for the farmer to produce under good,
10:22
let's say, both welfare conditions and health conditions
10:25
and document at a detailed level what you're actually doing.
10:29
The ASC label is one of the world's largest.
10:32
Most licensed fish farms must pay fees to be part of it.
10:35
The organization has the farms inspected.
10:38
The ASC says that several hundred fish farms are licensed in Norway alone.
10:46
If they're not able to do this, the label or the certification gets withdrawn or even cancelled.
10:53
So in the end they drop out of the program.
10:56
This is Tobias Haug. He represents ASC in German-speaking countries.
11:01
We can see that actually.
11:02
For example, in Norway in 2023 alone, 52 salmon farms had to withdraw from our program
11:10
because they couldn't meet the requirements.
11:13
But let's take another look at a completely new trend, closed aquaculture.
11:19
In Norway, we meet a farm manager with a pioneering spirit.
11:23
The company he works for says over one million salmon swim in its 30 breeding tanks.
11:29
They do not use nets.
11:31
The tanks' outer walls are made of plastic.
11:37
We're trying to find a new way of doing salmon farming
11:41
and our goal is to reach the utopia of having the world's most sustainable salmon farming.
11:47
The benefit? The salmon louse cannot penetrate the tank's plastic outer layer
11:53
and the farmed salmon cannot escape.
11:55
A filter collects the fish excrement, which is then pumped to the surface.
12:00
It is then dried and used for biogas plants or as fertilizer.
12:05
We're the only salmon farmer that I know that don't have sea lice
12:09
and when the fish gets to thrive inside of a good environment, we have very good growth.
12:16
Environmental problems and the health of salmon are the biggest challenges facing the industry.
12:21
More and more salmon are being produced as a result of aquaculture.
12:25
But uniform international standards and controls must be introduced
12:29
to guarantee sustainable management in the sector and a reliable quality product.
12:46
www.fisheries.noaa.gov
12:48
www.fisheries.noaa.gov
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