A lot of interesting tech is being developed in salmon farming, and e.g. AI has been around for a long time. The north star is offshore farming in giant autonomus constructions far out at sea. Though problem but worth solving
Some of these farms are truly impressive. Although balancing the health of the fjords is hard. People seem to prefer "wild" salmon but just like we don't eat "wild" cow anymore, I imagine in 30+ years it will be the norm. Hopefully we can shift to that norm in an environmentally friendly way.
Strange to have an article about salmon farming drawbacks without mentioning escaped salmons polluting the wild salmon population. There has been a strong decrease in wild salmon as they lose the ability to migrate back up the river to lay their eggs due to breeding with escaped farming salmon.
It's interesting to see the power of wealth up close. For one the massive lobbying against any tax on the usage of the fjords(or on the wealth). But there is also cases where they will hire retired professors in tangentially related fields (like sea urchins) to write "scientific reports" "showing" whatever they want, which they then send to individual local MPs to convince them to allow more farming.
The statement from the lobbying group is a classic example of PR deny, deflect, distract, confuse. The statement is basically "we're not the cause of the problem but if there were a problem we're doing everything we legally should so it's not our fault but we're also working to reduce this theoretical problem, which of course does not exist and isn't our fault".
The effects of salmon fishing in Norway aren't limited to the local communities, it influences the whole area, back to the county government. Politicians lose a lot of support if they go against the money because despite driving our electric cars to our cabins and loving going to walks in nature, us living in Norway really, really like the good life and don't want anything to impact that. (To be fair, this also applies to the majority of the planet's population.)
I live in Norway and me and my family do not eat farmed fish - for multiple reasons; political, ecological, animal cruelty etc.
A hamburger probably has a better nutritional value than farmed salmon. Children and pregnant women should also limit the intake because it can disrupt development. And the color is fake, if they do not add coloring to the feed, farmed salmon would be gray.
I could go on the whole day about this stuff. The whole thing is just sad.
The myth of the good savage strikes again. Animal cruelty is a such elastic term that I'm wondering why they don't use it still to make condoms.
Predators trying to eat you alive all the time, cannibalism, diseases making tunnels in your muscle, famine, acid water, contamination, environmental changes, noise levels that could make you crazy. If you have luck you reproduce once and then die of exhaustion and skin infections. If not, a bear eats you alive just when you were thinking in losing your virginity at 40 Yo, finally. Or a fishermen puts a hook in your eye, or in the mouth just for fun, pulls you out of the water and lets you suffocate slowly. Or you bang your head against a concrete wall. This is the normal journey of a wild salmon.
And this is NOT animal cruelty. This does not make you sad.
If you are on a crusade to remove animal cruelty, look at all this people living in Tokyo. They are packed like sardines in a can. But humans are gregarious animals, so it does not matter!. (They are happy!). Salmons on the other way are gregarious animals, so it is a big problem!. (They are sad!. They talk to me complaining!)
Is a problem, simply because it does not fit into our ideological vision of the world. An infantile paradise where salmons are nice little people with tiny hats that party with Pepa pig. They love bananas, football and to climb trees. (They must love it, because we do).
The idea that salmons are predatory fishes and would not mind to eat their siblings if they can catch them... don't like that. Protect me from the real world, pikachu.
Salmon feed lots, with a similar problem of concentrated waste, cruelty and unhealthy animals. Sounds like the underwater egg solution they discuss in the article might also be solving an optics issue they have. Out of sight, out of mind.
1. The Title should be "Norway became a global salmon behemoth. Now it's facing the consequences". It fits the character limit, why change it?
2. A lot of the conditions for Salmon farming can be drastically improved or completely eliminated if they have done it further away in deep sea rather than coast. It just cost more.
3. China is rapidly improving their Salmon Farming so there isn't much to worry about for Norway. In 10 - 20 years time half of it will be gone.
I am surprised by the statement "Today, salmon sushi is a staple of Japanese cuisine"
While in Japan a few years ago, I found no salmon on the menu in sushi places.
When inquiring why, we were told that salmon is not that good, and that is more a food for kids than adults. Did it change or are we just one data point?
I've been last year and none of the 4+ Tabelog-rated sushi places I've been to had it. It was quite common in grocery stores though; sashimi grade was cheap and plentiful.
Salmon sushi is very popular, but it's not part of the traditional Edomae style (fish from the Tokyo bay), so the more upscale or traditional restaurants often don't serve it.
I've been here for 15+ years and I've never seen a sushi place without salmon. But I've never been to a "fancy" sushi place, just supermarkets, kaiten chains and neighborhood restaurants that are $20-40 a head.
Salmon is not a "traditional" sushi ingredient because, until the introduction of flash-freezing, it couldn't be eaten raw due to the risk of parasites. That changed in the 80s or so, I think.
There have been critical articles about the lice problem in Norwegian newspapers for years, so it's honestly relieving to finally see it talked about abroad. I've felt shameful whenever people talk about the "superior Norwegian salmon".
Hopefully international attention is what it takes for change to meaningfully happen beyond some R&D.
Recently there has been a push to farm "dry-land" salmon. In other words, the salmon live in large tanks on land, rather than in pens in the sea.
At the moment a company is trying to start one of these close to me. Some local people are opposed, some are supportive, but most just want more objective study and information (i.e. not performed/paid for by the company itself).
The devil may be in the implementation, but it certainly has some big advantages over the coastal pens.
Nagano, Japan does land farming of salmon. It's a landlocked state far from any coast so the farming is done in inland rivers and lakes. It's a crossbreed of rainbow trout and brown trout that produces a sterile hybrid called Shinshu Salmon so I don't know if it's actually real salmon, but it tastes like the same thing.
"Sushi has been consumed in Japan for more than 1,000 years but the Japanese had historically preferred tuna, seeing raw salmon as parasite-ridden and unpleasant to the palette. "
English isn't my first language and even I know "palette" is wrong. Is it normal for official news outlets to write stuff like this?
>English isn't my first language and even I know "palette" is wrong.
The "and" in your comment implies that you think that being a native speaker should make someone more accurate with this. In fact it's the opposite. It makes sense that it sticks out to you as a non native speaker. Native speakers are less sensitive to the spelling of homophones (and this is true in many languages, not just English).
I think this is a veiled advertisement for Norway. Half of the world is engulfed in wars and terror (half across the road towards Mad Max), however Norway is worrying about the environmental effect of salmon feces on its fjords.
which salmon organs would contain most of say the heavy metals? they could be selectively cut out, and any below-regulation levels sold (domestically and abroad) can be seen as a free heavy metal remediation effort in those bays and fjords.
Making a closed loop system possibly including IMTA either on land (why not right at the salmon processing facilities saving transport costs and assets like boats, its cheaper to have no vehicle to maintain) or in water like the "Eggs" described in the article sounds like a no-brainer for the industry, who cares about 10x capex when the bottleneck is not capex but bureaucracy to get expansion permits? Once you realize capex is not the bottleneck (you can reuse the new system), it allows a lot of other costs to be eliminated, like disease and parasites: commingling fish with expensive health monitoring and management at density ρ can be replaced with smaller cells, each cell their intake and exhaust tubing, and the reservoir contact rate falls precipitously for the same density ρ: is the switchover investment more expensive than the current system? yes, but growth isn't limited by capex. This switchover would be desirable (true damage like the harmful fish feces concentration is prevented; false damage like bioaccumulating harmful heavy metals inserted by other human activities becomes none of the fish farmer's problems at all). The taxation excuses will dry up.
funny, I tried to tell people and share with them about this salmon farming problem since many years, including quality, pollution, diseases and industrial feeding.
It is important to be aware of this and dont abuse salmon eating since imho some kind of risk is there, beside the negativity of its farming!
There are many documentaries online that show the core farming problem, it is interesting to see based on the article that this problems are becoming bigger and bigger and beside the lobbying hopefully there will be investments to solve it.
I'm surprised that a country like Norway and Norwegian people allow such abuse of the fjords and of the animal... but yeah I guess always same story, work for people, business, lobbying etc.
if its oil, fish pig or cow the game is the same.
awareness is the first step, change is what is needed!
It's encouraging that even the powerful lobbyists in Norway are discussing the effects their field has in the environment:
> Krister Hoaas from the industry lobby group says that Norway is pursuing sustainable growth.
>"We have to have growth within the limits that nature can cope with in a good way, and that would imply introduction of a lot of different production methods," Hoaas says.
I like to see how much more nuanced and reasonable the discussions between opposing parties are in the Nordic countries when compared to most of the rest of the world.
Unfortunately it's not the norm, and is instead a great, and positive example of an outlier.
Corpo speak globally is a lot closer to the opposite of what you quoted. The US, Australia (gas, mining and energy companies are core examples) and for the larger part Europe (e.g., Volkswagen) effortless say everything and nothing at the same time.
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[ 0.23 ms ] story [ 28.7 ms ] threadJurassic park vibes here. I know, I know...
Okay, say the damned phrase and shut up.
The effects of salmon fishing in Norway aren't limited to the local communities, it influences the whole area, back to the county government. Politicians lose a lot of support if they go against the money because despite driving our electric cars to our cabins and loving going to walks in nature, us living in Norway really, really like the good life and don't want anything to impact that. (To be fair, this also applies to the majority of the planet's population.)
A hamburger probably has a better nutritional value than farmed salmon. Children and pregnant women should also limit the intake because it can disrupt development. And the color is fake, if they do not add coloring to the feed, farmed salmon would be gray.
I could go on the whole day about this stuff. The whole thing is just sad.
Do farm raised fish still have elevated heavy metal levels? I figured that getting human controlled food would cut down on that.
Predators trying to eat you alive all the time, cannibalism, diseases making tunnels in your muscle, famine, acid water, contamination, environmental changes, noise levels that could make you crazy. If you have luck you reproduce once and then die of exhaustion and skin infections. If not, a bear eats you alive just when you were thinking in losing your virginity at 40 Yo, finally. Or a fishermen puts a hook in your eye, or in the mouth just for fun, pulls you out of the water and lets you suffocate slowly. Or you bang your head against a concrete wall. This is the normal journey of a wild salmon.
And this is NOT animal cruelty. This does not make you sad.
If you are on a crusade to remove animal cruelty, look at all this people living in Tokyo. They are packed like sardines in a can. But humans are gregarious animals, so it does not matter!. (They are happy!). Salmons on the other way are gregarious animals, so it is a big problem!. (They are sad!. They talk to me complaining!)
Is a problem, simply because it does not fit into our ideological vision of the world. An infantile paradise where salmons are nice little people with tiny hats that party with Pepa pig. They love bananas, football and to climb trees. (They must love it, because we do).
The idea that salmons are predatory fishes and would not mind to eat their siblings if they can catch them... don't like that. Protect me from the real world, pikachu.
If can afford wild then get wild, otherwise farmed is cheaper.
No different to farmed animals or non organic crops. All three are maximised for growth rate and revenue
2. A lot of the conditions for Salmon farming can be drastically improved or completely eliminated if they have done it further away in deep sea rather than coast. It just cost more.
3. China is rapidly improving their Salmon Farming so there isn't much to worry about for Norway. In 10 - 20 years time half of it will be gone.
While in Japan a few years ago, I found no salmon on the menu in sushi places.
When inquiring why, we were told that salmon is not that good, and that is more a food for kids than adults. Did it change or are we just one data point?
Salmon is not a "traditional" sushi ingredient because, until the introduction of flash-freezing, it couldn't be eaten raw due to the risk of parasites. That changed in the 80s or so, I think.
Hopefully international attention is what it takes for change to meaningfully happen beyond some R&D.
Not "sharks with lasers" but "Stingray Laser system"
https://www.kvaroyarctic.com/the-stingray-laser-system-the-s...
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/6sGkVQUvW20
At the moment a company is trying to start one of these close to me. Some local people are opposed, some are supportive, but most just want more objective study and information (i.e. not performed/paid for by the company itself).
The devil may be in the implementation, but it certainly has some big advantages over the coastal pens.
https://www.pref.nagano.lg.jp/suisan/jisseki/salmon/english....
English isn't my first language and even I know "palette" is wrong. Is it normal for official news outlets to write stuff like this?
The "and" in your comment implies that you think that being a native speaker should make someone more accurate with this. In fact it's the opposite. It makes sense that it sticks out to you as a non native speaker. Native speakers are less sensitive to the spelling of homophones (and this is true in many languages, not just English).
Painting with salmon is a .. novel take on the art of food.
then you see this kind of language you know what this article gonna be is about
Making a closed loop system possibly including IMTA either on land (why not right at the salmon processing facilities saving transport costs and assets like boats, its cheaper to have no vehicle to maintain) or in water like the "Eggs" described in the article sounds like a no-brainer for the industry, who cares about 10x capex when the bottleneck is not capex but bureaucracy to get expansion permits? Once you realize capex is not the bottleneck (you can reuse the new system), it allows a lot of other costs to be eliminated, like disease and parasites: commingling fish with expensive health monitoring and management at density ρ can be replaced with smaller cells, each cell their intake and exhaust tubing, and the reservoir contact rate falls precipitously for the same density ρ: is the switchover investment more expensive than the current system? yes, but growth isn't limited by capex. This switchover would be desirable (true damage like the harmful fish feces concentration is prevented; false damage like bioaccumulating harmful heavy metals inserted by other human activities becomes none of the fish farmer's problems at all). The taxation excuses will dry up.
It is important to be aware of this and dont abuse salmon eating since imho some kind of risk is there, beside the negativity of its farming!
There are many documentaries online that show the core farming problem, it is interesting to see based on the article that this problems are becoming bigger and bigger and beside the lobbying hopefully there will be investments to solve it.
I'm surprised that a country like Norway and Norwegian people allow such abuse of the fjords and of the animal... but yeah I guess always same story, work for people, business, lobbying etc. if its oil, fish pig or cow the game is the same.
awareness is the first step, change is what is needed!
hell i would pay for that. high protein extra firm tofu is like 2.70/lb for me.
i get about 35g protein from 8oz of that tofu.
i eat salmon 2x a week but most of my diet is tofu and beans/lentils for protein.
i think it would be far ecologically and financially better to have tofu enhanced, so it meets nutritional needs at low cost.
and i personally find tofu a lot more flexible than any other food.
Insane, because this strait has always heavy current and nasty mælstrøms as half of Atlantic goes that way to east and back daily.
> Krister Hoaas from the industry lobby group says that Norway is pursuing sustainable growth.
>"We have to have growth within the limits that nature can cope with in a good way, and that would imply introduction of a lot of different production methods," Hoaas says.
I like to see how much more nuanced and reasonable the discussions between opposing parties are in the Nordic countries when compared to most of the rest of the world.
Corpo speak globally is a lot closer to the opposite of what you quoted. The US, Australia (gas, mining and energy companies are core examples) and for the larger part Europe (e.g., Volkswagen) effortless say everything and nothing at the same time.