Norway salmon farming moves to cleaner waters: indoors
The fish live in two gigantic pools inside an inconspicuous industrial building in Fredrikstad owned by a company that plans to raise salmon in similar settings even further afield, in the United States.
By raising the salmon on land, the industry is attempting to move away from the river or sea cages that have invited criticism over a slew of issues.
The problems run from costly mass escapes to fish infected with sea lice treated with chemicals to mounds of faeces and feed piling up on the seabed below the farms.
"At sea, you depend on the almighty for many things. In a land-based farm, we are suddenly the all-powerful one," Fredrikstad Seafoods general manager Roger Fredriksen told AFP.
"Here we control everything: temperature, oxygen, pH, CO2," he said as he gave a tour of Norway's first land-based salmon farm, opened in 2019.
Pumped from the nearby mouth of Norway's largest river, the salt water that feeds the facility is treated with UV light to eliminate viruses and bacteria and afterwards it is cycled and filtered through a loop for repeated use.
Under a faint blue light, designed to trigger their appetite, the salmon swim day and night as they are fed food pellets from an overhead dispenser.
Norwegian salmon farming is moving indoors and futher afield: in the United States.
Land-based farming projects are already spreading around the world and soon salmon now primarily raised in Norwegian, Chilean, Scottish and Canadian waters will also be produced in Japan, Florida or China.
Fredrikstad Seafoods general manager Roger Fredriksen says: ""At sea, you depend on the almighty for many things. In a land-based farm, we are suddenly the all-powerful one".