Looking Back: Salmon aquaculture grows in the Faroes

Nowadays the Faroes is one of the world’s established salmon farming regions, but back in 1982 when Fish Farmer reported on a fact-finding visit to the islands, the industry was just getting started.

As Derek Mills, of the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Edinburgh, explained, even salmon hatcheries to stock wild populations in the Faroes’ rivers had only been in existence since the 1960s.

Two hatcheries operated by the Faroes Sport Association had a capacity to produce, respectively, 2,000-3,000 sea trout and 3,000 salmon smolts; and 35,000 sea trout and 130,000 salmon smolts.

Fiskaaling (which rebranded as “Firum” in 2023), a branch of the Faroes Fisheries Research Institute, also produced smolts for restocking.

For commercial aquaculture, as Derek Mills reported: “The Faroese Government is keen to promote cage-rearing of adult salmon because of the employment and export prospects it offers.

“At present there are only three or four salmon farms – one in Kaldbaksfjordur on Streymoy, one in Funningsfjordur on Eysturoy and one in Haraldssund off the south point of Kunoy opposite Klaksvik.”

The largest of these was in its first year of production, with an estimated total harvest of   between 25 and 30 tonnes.

As Mills put it, presciently as it turned out: “Ninety-five per cent of the Faroes economy is based on fish and fish products. Salmon production could in the future play a significant role in the economy, as marine fish stocks are dwindling within the country’s 200-mile fishery limits and only restricted quotas for certain fish species are being allocated to them elsewhere.”