In 2011 Alex Salmond signed a trade agreement to export salmon directly to China, which had broken off its previous agreement with Norway due to their having awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to the dissident Liu Xiaobo. At the time he claimed “even if 1% of the people of China decide to eat Scottish salmon, then we'll have to double production in Scotland”. We got some pandas into the bargain, too.
I’ve not kept up with the pandas in the intervening eleven years, but the period has been a disaster for the environment of our West coast. Desperate attempts to increase production in our inshore sea lochs has only resulted in ever increasing mortalities, such that there’s a new industry just carting dead fish for safe disposal. Some sites register 40% deaths per cycle, millions of dead fish each year. Imagine the stooshie if this happened with land based farms!
During that period the aquaculture industry has become concentrated in a very small number of gigantic players, mainly Norwegian and Icelandic. We can be certain the Chinese know this; the companies must be hoping they’ve got short memories. Even companies that claim to be locally owned, such as Kames, work their sites in tandem with them (MOWI in their case).
One thing for sure is that these Nordic giants don’t care about the environment. Another thing is that they know the present situation can’t last forever. Whether it stops as the result of public revulsion at the truth of what’s going on, or simply a total wipeout of stock due to a virus, these guys are looking to the future, which is taking the cages out of the sea.
Let’s take a quick look at the environmental cost of sending salmon to China.
First, hoover up what you can find in coastal waters from Africa to Antarctica, krill or whatever, what some in the industry call ”trash fish”, but actually often immature fish that would grow to feed people.
Next take it a few thousand miles, add soya you’ve sourced at the expense of a rain forest and grind it into fish pellets. Send the results by compressed air down a degradable plastic pipe, adding microfibres to the water column.
Transfer the salmon you’ve grown from eggs flown from Norway from the inshore lochan you’ve grown them in, where you’ve been keeping them clean by feeding them bleach. After a year or so kill the 60% that have survived, take them to be processed, package them and fly them to China.
If that doesn’t sound like a plan, you’re right. Further, the industry agrees with you!
Those Norsemen are finally doing what only technology has held back to date, growing the salmon in China, on land! Read all about it here:
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