Rocks ahead

Mussels

Is shellfish farming still viable in the UK? Nicki Holmyard reports on a paper that sets out to answer that question The past president of the Shellfish Association of Great Britain (SAGB), Jeremy Simmonds, has seen the industry go through many highs and lows over the decades, but says he has never seen shellfish aquaculture…

Read More

Scaling up

Fermentation scientist Lis Vivas with fermenter

Bacteria are being put to work, extracting the useful elements from harvested seaweed, as Robert Outram reports We’re in the John Coulson Building at Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University, watching macerated sugar kelp spinning furiously in what looks like a sophisticated food processor. The aim of the exercise is not, however, to create a nutritious seaweed smoothie.…

Read More

Safe to eat

The latest round of testing shows that Norway’s farmed fish are still safe for consumers, as Vince McDonagh reports Farmed fish is free of illegal substances and safe to eat, research by the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research has found. The organisation carried out the work, which mostly took place in 2022, on behalf of…

Read More

But where are the lice?

Loch Linnhe

Modelling for the supposed prevalence of sea lice is not backed up by samples taken in the field, says Dr Martin Jaffa Congratulations to the Fish Farmer magazine team for hosting their first Aqua Agenda webinar, which took place in January. The subject was fish health (see the report starting on page 46 of this…

Read More

The great masquerade

Fish farm salmon round nets in natural environment Loch Awe Arygll and Bute Scotland

Salmon Scotland Chief Executive Tavish Scott addresses the blurring of the lines between activism and journalism, and highlights the desperate tactics of anti-salmon campaigners Our sector has hundreds of brilliantly talented biologists, veterinarians, hatchery technicians and environmental scientists who deliver the highest standards of animal welfare anywhere in the world. The innovation that has developed…

Read More

Seeing through the glass ceiling

Breaking through the glass ceiling graphic

Tackling unconscious choices can help us ‘banish’ bias from aquaculture, argues Heather Jones There was a wonderful moment in the BBC’s The Traitors – no spoilers here for those who still haven’t watched, I promise – when host Claudia Winkleman spotted a trend in the contestants who were being removed from the game. The three…

Read More

Taking on the challenges

Aqua Agenda logo

Climate change and other factors keep throwing up new threats to fish health, as our expert panel explained in Fish Farmer’s Aqua Agenda webinar. Robert Outram reports THE PANELLISTS  Dr Iain Berrill Head of Technical, Salmon Scotland Dr Iain Berrill has always had an interest in the marine and freshwater environment. He studied a BSc…

Read More

Sea lice research at VESO Aqualab

Egg bearing female salmon lice

Sea lice – a point of focus VESO is a world leading contract research facility, committed to the conduct of state-of-the-art trials with fish and fish pathogens. Our main focus is on know-how regarding host-pathogen interactions and on conducting experimental challenge procedures with the pathogens that commonly affect aquaculture of cold-water species. A particular point…

Read More

What shall I talk about?

Salmon fillets with Nick Joy cartoon logo

There’s hardly been any news about farming, so what on earth can I talk about? With French farmers dumping God knows what on their parliament and Brussels trying to fend them off the EU, there’s hardly anything interesting going on. Yet the media are finding it hard to cover. Occasionally they mention the green agenda…

Read More

Nordic Aqua on track for first Chinese harvest

Norwegian company Nordic Aqua Partners, which is developing a land based facility in China, has reported a good operational performance in the fourth quarter of last year with construction works for Stage One completed on time and on budget. The biological performance was good for all batches – with strong growth, a mortality rate below…

Read More