US awards $11m to fish farming

THE United States government yesterday awarded more than $11 million in grants to speed up the development of the country’s aquaculture industry. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said: ‘With such vast coastlines, there is no reason the United States should be importing billions of pounds of seafood each year. ‘Growing a domestic aquaculture industry would create…

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Turbot growth driven by aquaculture

PRODUCTION of turbot is growing throughout Europe, largely thanks to an evolution in farming techniques. This is the view of EUMOFA, the European Market Observatory for Fisheries and Aquaculture, which has recently completed a case study on the species. EUMOFA said that this evolution began in Scotland in the 1970s; it was then introduced to…

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Salmon star in BBC special

A LEADING salmon farmer said the industry in the future would need to ‘think a little bit differently’ if it wants to produce more fish. Interviewed for a special BBC Scotland documentary about the impact of farmed salmon on wild stocks, Steve Bracken, who worked at Marine Harvest for 41 years until his retirement in…

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All change on climate committee

THE convener of a Holyrood committee that produced a critical report on the salmon farming sector earlier this year has been replaced. Graeme Dey (SNP), who oversaw proceedings by the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform (ECCLR) committee during the first salmon inquiry of the year, has handed over to Gillian Martin, also a Scottish…

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Another first for prize Cooke man

THE first student to complete the Technical Apprenticeship in Aquaculture Management was honoured with a new prize in NAFC Marine Centre UHI’s annual awards ceremony last week. John McCulloch of Cooke Aquaculture was given the inaugural Ertie Nicolson Prize in memory of the late Ertie Nicolson, who had a long association with the NAFC. McCulloch,…

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Norway to fly salmon direct to China

THE Chinese operated Hainan Airlines is to start the first direct flights from Oslo to Beijing next spring in a move that will boost Norway’s seafood market in China. Norway is looking to increase its salmon exports to China’s burgeoning middle classes and the Norwegian Seafood Council predicted in the summer that the volume of…

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Huon expands to Western Australia

HUON Aquaculture, the large Tasmanian salmon farming group, is to create a 24,000 tonne capacity fish farm on a 6,000 acre location off the Abrolhis Islands in Western Australia. David Kelly, the fisheries minister for Western Australia, confirmed that the company has signed a contract with the state government for a lease in the mid-west…

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Scottish salmon value tops £1bn

SCOTTISH farmed salmon was worth more than £1 billion to the economy for the first time last year, an increase of 37 per cent on 2016. The news came on top of government figures this morning revealing a 16.5 per cent rise in production in 2017, to almost 190,000 tonnes. Following the publication of the…

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SSPO welcomes bumper year

THE Scottish Salmon Producers’ Organisation has welcomed record production levels by salmon farmers in 2017. In government figures just published, Scottish farms harvested 189,707 tonnes in 2017, up by 16.5 per cent on 2016 and the sector’s highest ever output. The level of survival on farms has also improved, up to 79.1 per cent compared…

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Record year for Scottish salmon farms

SCOTTISH salmon farmers produced the highest ever volume of fish last year, with total production of 189,707 tonnes, an increase of 26,890 tonnes, or 16.5 per cent on 2016 figures. According to the Scottish Fish Farm Production Survey 2017, just published by the Scottish government, marine salmon production was undertaken by 12 businesses farming 226…

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