Land-based farming and hatcheries
Tackling RAS
challenges
Investment in land-based farming systems must ensure a safe environment for the fish
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celand’S largest fishing and seafood producer, Samherji, began construction work this month on a £9m expansion of its land-based Silfurstjörn fish farm. Diggers moved in to begin preparing the site at Öxarfjörður in the north east of Iceland, which will boost output to around 3,000 tonnes. Arnar Freyr Jónsson, operations manager at Fiskeldi Samherji in Öxarfjörður, said it was always a good feeling to get practical construction underway. He added: “The preparation naturally takes time, such as working on planning issues, permit applications and more. This is probably the largest project in the field of employment in this area since Silfurstjörn was built in 1998.” Samherji said five new pots would be built, which would be about half the size of the largest existing pots. Samherji’s aquaculture division intends to bring its salmon production up to 40,000 tonnes over the next few years and the expansion of its Öxarfjörður farm was related to those plans, the company has said. It is also being viewed as a precursor to a far larger project in Reykjanes, a few miles south of Reykjavik, where a £260m land farm powered by hot springs will be built. This is just one of many land-based fish farm projects under way around
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the world. In December, for example, we reported that salmon farmer SalmoTerra had commissioned Graintech to build an 8,000-tonne recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) facility at Øygarden, near Bergen in Norway. In the US, Aquaco has raised US$600,000 through crowdfunding to double the size of its RAS farm in Florida to a capacity of more than 85 tonnes. Aquaco farms pompano, otherwise known as sunfish. Even Spain is getting in on the act, with plans to build the country’s first RAS site for Atlantic salmon. The farm, in Ramales de la Victoria, represents an investment of around €32m by Mexican-owned Norcantabric. Investment in RAS farming is continuing at pace from Sweden to Singapore. Land-based farming avoids many of the problems associated with marine fish farms, from sea lice to storms at sea, but it is not without its own
Above: The Samherji construction team Opposite from top: Monitoring Blue Unit data online; Fish welfare is a priority for producers
www.fishfarmermagazine.com
07/02/2022 14:18:39
