Canada's biggest seafood aquaculture company Cooke Aquaculture claimed many obstacles will have to be
overcome before salmon can be raised on land, since the firm does not deem it
commercially viable. This statement was in the framework of the conference at the Atlantic Salmon Federation (ASF) near St. Andrews, New
Brunswick, Canada, which took place on 29-30 April, CBC News reported. At the conference, chief of the Namgis First Nation in British Columbia Bill Cramner explained
the Namgis closed-containment facility on Vancouver Island grows Atlantic
salmon on a commercial scale in a completely land-based aquaculture system. "You can't guarantee there's no disease in a recirculated land
based system so it's good to prepare for that," pointed out Cooke
Aquaculture project manager for freshwater systems Mitchell Dickie. Dickie explained the fresh water required to recirculate in a tank
system amounts to approximately 8,000 litres per minute for a single,
commercial-scale farm and he added that any disease that enters the system
would spread immediately. To this firm, which grows salmon in sea cages in Canada, the United
States, Europe and South America and has 20 years' experience with land-based
recirculating aquaculture systems, another hinder is finding the land to do all
this tank farming. Cooke's vice-president for communications, Neil Halse, stressed that to
put all of its New Brunswick operations on land would require between 4,000 and
5,000 indoor tanks. Halse also remarked that land systems require a tremendous amount of
energy to power recirculating pumps and considers consumers would not be
willing to pay a premium on the price of fresh salmon raised on land. The Canadian aquaculture industry has been around for a little over 30
years and is estimated to generate over CAD 2 billion (USD 1.8 billion)
annually while employing nearly 15,000 people from coastal and rural
communities. Salmon aquaculture has had its share of problems in the past, such as
disease, sea lice, shock from sudden temperature changes and escapes into the
wild.
Reproduced with permission. Copyright www.fis.com On the other hand, an
analysis named:
"Land
Based RAS and Open Pen Salmon Aquaculture: Comparative Economic and
Environmental Assessment"
conducted by: Trond W. Rosten, Kristian Henriksen, Erik Skontorp Hognes (SINTEF
Fisheries and Aquaculture , Norway) and Brian Vinci, Steven Summerfelt (The
Conservation Fund Freshwater Institute, USA),
concludes "Land-based production of Atlantic
salmon in this model RAS system do not have a higher production cost and lower
return on investment than production in a Model Net Pen farming system, given
that a premium price for RAS-farmed salmon can be achieved"
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