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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00:00Salmon farming is a billion-dollar business, and sales figures continue to rise.
00:07Norway and Chile are the biggest players.
00:10We visit one of the biggest salmon farms in the world,
00:13which has invested in new technology,
00:15and a whistleblower from Chile reports on the industry's dark side.
00:23Find out why on Transforming Business.
00:27In recent decades, one scandal after another.
00:31Mass salmon die-offs, deadly infectious diseases.
00:35The fish are treated with antibiotics and chemicals to fight parasites and disease.
00:40Is it still the same narrative?
00:42We take a look at Norway, the world's largest salmon producer.
00:47The profits of fish farms there have risen massively since 2015
00:52to over 3.5 billion euros in 2022.
01:02It may look like a ship, but the company says it's the world's biggest fish farm.
01:07It's run by Nordlax, a huge aquaculture farm in northern Norway.
01:12The nets reach 56 meters deep into the sea.
01:15Around 2.5 million salmon swim around in them.
01:18The farm has been designed so that fewer fish get sick or die,
01:22according to the sales and marketing director.
01:28Normally we run at mortality rates, I would say around 5%, 4 to 6, over the last five years.
01:35The fact that mortality rates are so low at the farm is due in part to this laser gun.
01:41But more on that later.
01:45The average mortality rate throughout Norway is significantly higher at 17%.
01:50One problem with aquaculture? Parasites, such as the salmon louse,
01:55which repeatedly attack the fish.
01:57It's a crustacean that can kill the salmon.
01:59That's why Nordlax gives the infested farmed salmon freshwater baths.
02:04And they also use chemical baths to remove the salmon lice.
02:07But this can make the animals sick.
02:12One of the main reasons is handling due to treatment against salmon lice.
02:20To remove salmon lice now entails a lot of treatment,
02:23and that treatment is stressful for the fish.
02:25And then they can, for instance, develop wounds afterwards.
02:29This is Erik Bering. His institute checks the health of the fish.
02:36There's another problem.
02:37Farmed salmon keep escaping from the nets and transmitting the salmon louse to wild salmon.
02:42When farmed in wild salmon mate, their offspring displace the wild salmon stalks.
02:48This is another reason why the wild Atlantic salmon is among the world's endangered species.
02:58This farm uses a laser beam to remove salmon lice.
03:01It's supposed to cut the infection rate and stop the fish from becoming too weak.
03:08The farm is also located in the open sea, not in a fjord.
03:12The moving freshwater is supposed to reduce the disease infestation.
03:16Sediment and excrement are washed away more easily by the ocean currents.
03:20But this is only standard practice on this farm.
03:23Nordlax says that it also operates 40 conventional farms in fjords.
03:27Like the entire industry, the company is under pressure.
03:30It has to invest in environmentally friendly facilities, and it can afford to do so.
03:37Global farmed salmon revenue grew from over 13 billion euros in 2017 to more than 20 billion in 2022.
03:45There's good money to be made from salmon.
03:48Ingeberg Nordlax's owner has made a fortune worth hundreds of millions of euros.
03:53It's a similar story for billionaires Gustav Witze and his son Gustav Magner of the Salmar company.
03:59Aquaculture is growing more and more compared with fishing, although globally most fish are still caught.
04:08But that is changing.
04:10Aquaculture production surpassed fishing in 2023, with 97 million tons.
04:23But fish farming is controversial.
04:26When it comes to salmon, many ask whether the species is suited to aquaculture.
04:30The reason? It's a predatory fish that needs both a certain amount of fish in its feed as well as soy.
04:50After Norway, Chile is a leading producer of farmed salmon, followed by Britain, Canada and the Faroe Islands, which belong to Denmark.
05:01In Chile, salmon companies and investors from Norway such as Schermach, Movi and Salmar have expanded into the country.
05:09Even conglomerate Mitsubishi operates there.
05:16In a key salmon farming region in Chile, we meet whistleblower Mario Ángel Uribe.
05:22He worked in an aquaculture facility owned by Nova Austral until 2021 and publicized the salmon farm's breach of environmental regulations.
05:52The Chilean Environmental Supervisory Authority, SMA, imposed a heavy fine on Nova, and they had to close some farms.
06:23But another problem affects Chile's entire salmon farming industry.
06:28Antibiotics are used on a massive scale to fight infectious disease.
06:33Critics, like veterinarian Lisbeth Fandamer, says this endangers both humans and animals.
06:53More antibiotics are used in Chile's fish farms than anywhere else in the world.
06:59339 tons in 2023.
07:02There is less systematic monitoring and fewer sanctions than in Europe.
07:07These conditions have made it easy for salmon farmers from Norway to expand into Chile.
07:12But what might better monitoring of salmon farms look like?
07:17For example, Norway has been developing an interactive monitoring system for about 10 years.
07:23It receives data every week.
07:25The hundreds of salmon farms in the country are obliged to enter comprehensive data on various fish diseases.
07:32And there is a traffic light system.
07:34Red production zones means salmon lice infestation or that infections per fish are too high.
07:41The traffic light system is such that it defines whether you are allowed to increase your production or not.
07:47And this is based on the way that the different companies, farmers, control sea lice.
07:58This is virologist Einstein Evansen.
08:01He researches salmon diseases.
08:04But how reliable is this system, which is based on self-reporting?
08:08Authorities conduct random checks, which can lead to sanctions, fines or prison sentences.
08:15Any disease, treatment, diagnosis of notifiable diseases and so on.
08:34Occasionally we go out and count together.
08:38We make them count first and then we count and we compare the numbers.
08:43That's Lisa Charlotta Råkonus. Her team monitors fish health in Norway.
08:51Mostly it is correct. And we have some that is not correct.
08:57And it depends on the severity of the wrongdoing here.
09:06Chile's Economic Affairs Ministry also wants to improve the monitoring system
09:10for the country's hundreds of breeding facilities.
09:16One such measure is that the farms must report on the amount of antibiotics
09:20or other chemicals they use.
09:23But how does the monitoring work?
09:29It's of course difficult to, let's say, know in detail.
09:36But the numbers from Chile have been more and more precise over the last years
09:42and they have been more and more detailed.
09:45But what does this mean for consumers?
09:47How can they find out which fish they are buying in the supermarket?
09:51There are many different quality labels.
09:53They all define global standards for the farming of fish.
09:57Companies that want to gain certification from the Aquaculture Stewardship Council, or ASC,
10:02must comply with specific upper limits for infectious disease or fish mortality.
10:09So we call it impose certain standards.
10:12And that is always positive and always needed.
10:17But it should also be a motivation for the farmer to produce under good,
10:22let's say, both welfare conditions and health conditions
10:25and document at a detailed level what you're actually doing.
10:29The ASC label is one of the world's largest.
10:32Most licensed fish farms must pay fees to be part of it.
10:35The organization has the farms inspected.
10:38The ASC says that several hundred fish farms are licensed in Norway alone.
10:46If they're not able to do this, the label or the certification gets withdrawn or even cancelled.
10:53So in the end they drop out of the program.
10:56This is Tobias Haug. He represents ASC in German-speaking countries.
11:01We can see that actually.
11:02For example, in Norway in 2023 alone, 52 salmon farms had to withdraw from our program
11:10because they couldn't meet the requirements.
11:13But let's take another look at a completely new trend, closed aquaculture.
11:19In Norway, we meet a farm manager with a pioneering spirit.
11:23The company he works for says over one million salmon swim in its 30 breeding tanks.
11:29They do not use nets.
11:31The tanks' outer walls are made of plastic.
11:37We're trying to find a new way of doing salmon farming
11:41and our goal is to reach the utopia of having the world's most sustainable salmon farming.
11:47The benefit? The salmon louse cannot penetrate the tank's plastic outer layer
11:53and the farmed salmon cannot escape.
11:55A filter collects the fish excrement, which is then pumped to the surface.
12:00It is then dried and used for biogas plants or as fertilizer.
12:05We're the only salmon farmer that I know that don't have sea lice
12:09and when the fish gets to thrive inside of a good environment, we have very good growth.
12:16Environmental problems and the health of salmon are the biggest challenges facing the industry.
12:21More and more salmon are being produced as a result of aquaculture.
12:25But uniform international standards and controls must be introduced
12:29to guarantee sustainable management in the sector and a reliable quality product.
12:46www.fisheries.noaa.gov
12:48www.fisheries.noaa.gov