I live in Norway and me and my family do not eat farmed fish - for multiple reasons; political, ecological, animal cruelty etc.
A hamburger probably has a better nutritional value than farmed salmon. Children and pregnant women should also limit the intake because it can disrupt development. And the color is fake, if they do not add coloring to the food, farmed salmon would be gray.
I could go on the whole day about this stuff. The whole thing is just sad.
Salmon feed lots, with a similar problem of concentrated waste, cruelty and unhealthy animals. Sounds like the underwater egg solution they discuss in the article might also be solving an optics issue they have. Out of sight, out of mind.
It's interesting to see the power of wealth up close. For one the massive lobbying against any tax on the usage of the fjords(or on the wealth). But there is also cases where they will hire retired professors in tangentially related fields (like sea urchins) to write "scientific reports" "showing" whatever they want, which they then send to individual local MPs to convince them to allow more farming.
Strange to have an article about salmon farming drawbacks without mentioning escaped salmons polluting the wild salmon population. There has been a strong decrease in wild salmon as they lose the ability to migrate back up the river to lay their eggs due to breeding with escaped farming salmon.
I think the idea is that the migration instinct passed down by wild salmon is an epigenetic heritable trait. This trait is strongly selected for in wild salmon populations, but not in farmed populations. The constant influx of this maladaptive trait into the wild population is leading to an overall decrease in the ability of the wild population to successfully propagate.
A lot of interesting tech is being developed in salmon farming, and e.g. AI has been around for a long time. The north star is offshore farming in giant autonomus constructions far out at sea. Though problem but worth solving
Is it though - I feel like the north star is on land farming. So many benefits. Offshore farming will exacerbate farmed salmon escaping and polluting wild salmon + parasites etc (land farmed salmon can generally be eaten raw or under cooked without being frozen without any worries)
Some of these farms are truly impressive. Although balancing the health of the fjords is hard. People seem to prefer "wild" salmon but just like we don't eat "wild" cow anymore, I imagine in 30+ years it will be the norm. Hopefully we can shift to that norm in an environmentally friendly way.
We don’t eat wild cows anymore because aurochs went extinct in the last few hundred years.
People still eat junglefowl (ancestor of chickens) and wild boar (pig), but in the developed world domesticated animals are usually both cheaper and tastier.
Addendum: People will probably read that as "au-rochs" (and wikipedia's IPA sure isn't helping here), but it's actually split "aur-ochs". (that latter part being the foundation for the current word 'ox')
Source: studied german enough to recognise that word root
Technically it works. Superior Fresh, as in the linked article, has a viable system. The challenge is that in the beginning it is hard to reach a scale that works economically. Added to that, in Norway it is challenging to grow leafy greens in greenhouses in the winter, compared to the latitude where Superior Fresh is located. It can be done, but is energy intensive. We ran a fully indoor pilot facility for five years in Sweden, it is still operational, under a new team. My ambition is to document what we learned in a CC licensed book. At the moment it is partially documented in a blog. https://cirkularodling.se/build-an-aquaponic-indoor-farm-par...
I live in Norway and me and my family do not eat farmed fish - for multiple reasons; political, ecological, animal cruelty etc.
A hamburger probably has a better nutritional value than farmed salmon. Children and pregnant women should also limit the intake because it can disrupt development. And the color is fake, if they do not add coloring to the food, farmed salmon would be gray.
I could go on the whole day about this stuff. The whole thing is just sad.
Astaxanthin for the color fair. What about the salmon is bad for pregnant women?
Growth hormones. It’s better now than some years ago, but still.
And they use a lot of antibiotics.
Salmon feed lots, with a similar problem of concentrated waste, cruelty and unhealthy animals. Sounds like the underwater egg solution they discuss in the article might also be solving an optics issue they have. Out of sight, out of mind.
It's interesting to see the power of wealth up close. For one the massive lobbying against any tax on the usage of the fjords(or on the wealth). But there is also cases where they will hire retired professors in tangentially related fields (like sea urchins) to write "scientific reports" "showing" whatever they want, which they then send to individual local MPs to convince them to allow more farming.
Strange to have an article about salmon farming drawbacks without mentioning escaped salmons polluting the wild salmon population. There has been a strong decrease in wild salmon as they lose the ability to migrate back up the river to lay their eggs due to breeding with escaped farming salmon.
That is... unintuitive. Wouldn't the escaped salmon have to be able to get back upstream enough to where the wild salmon are laying/milting?
I think the idea is that the migration instinct passed down by wild salmon is an epigenetic heritable trait. This trait is strongly selected for in wild salmon populations, but not in farmed populations. The constant influx of this maladaptive trait into the wild population is leading to an overall decrease in the ability of the wild population to successfully propagate.
They’ve bred more docile salmon, according to the article. Getting that DNA into wild populations would be problematic I’d imagine.
Don’t forget the dams and the humpback salmon.
Would not feed it to my worst enemy.
A lot of interesting tech is being developed in salmon farming, and e.g. AI has been around for a long time. The north star is offshore farming in giant autonomus constructions far out at sea. Though problem but worth solving
Is it though - I feel like the north star is on land farming. So many benefits. Offshore farming will exacerbate farmed salmon escaping and polluting wild salmon + parasites etc (land farmed salmon can generally be eaten raw or under cooked without being frozen without any worries)
Full title: Norway became a global salmon behemoth. Now it's facing the consequences
Some of these farms are truly impressive. Although balancing the health of the fjords is hard. People seem to prefer "wild" salmon but just like we don't eat "wild" cow anymore, I imagine in 30+ years it will be the norm. Hopefully we can shift to that norm in an environmentally friendly way.
We don’t eat wild cows anymore because aurochs went extinct in the last few hundred years.
People still eat junglefowl (ancestor of chickens) and wild boar (pig), but in the developed world domesticated animals are usually both cheaper and tastier.
Addendum: People will probably read that as "au-rochs" (and wikipedia's IPA sure isn't helping here), but it's actually split "aur-ochs". (that latter part being the foundation for the current word 'ox')
Source: studied german enough to recognise that word root
Maybe this is the future https://www.science.org/content/article/oceans-away-raising-...
Technically it works. Superior Fresh, as in the linked article, has a viable system. The challenge is that in the beginning it is hard to reach a scale that works economically. Added to that, in Norway it is challenging to grow leafy greens in greenhouses in the winter, compared to the latitude where Superior Fresh is located. It can be done, but is energy intensive. We ran a fully indoor pilot facility for five years in Sweden, it is still operational, under a new team. My ambition is to document what we learned in a CC licensed book. At the moment it is partially documented in a blog. https://cirkularodling.se/build-an-aquaponic-indoor-farm-par...