TALES FROM THE RIVERBANK
on pellets made from ragworm and algae. One of the greatest criticisms of current indus- try practices is that it takes approximately 2.5 tonnes of fish feed created from species at the bottom of the food chain to produce one tonne of farmed salmon. The Fishfrom model has a Food Conversion Ratio (FCR) of 1 to 1 (it takes 8kg of cattle feed to produce a kilo of beef and 2kg of feed to produce a kilo of chicken). I had the pleasure of meeting Robertson
Land economy
Thanks to a Scots visionary, fish farming is moving onto terra firma, and only good can come from it
WORDS JON GIBB
scale land-based salmon farm has been given the planning go-ahead. Andrew Robertson’s Fishfrom company has
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been given the green light by Argyll and Bute planning authorities to build a 3,000-tonne salmon farm on a 3.5-acre site near Tayinloan on the Kintyre Peninsula. The £15 million development will grow smolts to 5kg adults in just nine months and will be operated using the latest recirculation technology from Denmark, pumping 32 million litres of fresh and sea water through vast fish rearing tanks every hour. With an expected output of over 800,000 salmon per annum, the first fish from the unit are expected to hit supermarket shelves in time for Christmas 2015. For those of us who have been involved in
nearly three decades of tension surrounding the impact of the fish farm industry on the wild salmon and sea trout stocks on the west coast, the news comes as a major beacon of hope for a more sustainable future. This farm will have zero interaction between fish, parasites and predators – and its controlled environment will not only benefit the overall product (a panel of 10 chefs recently favoured the land-based product over the traditional open cage variety) but it will also remove the unpredictable and sometimes catastrophic effects of storms, seal attacks and jellyfish infestations. But its sustainable credentials do not end
there. The considerable power requirements will come largely from photovoltaic panels installed in the roof and the fish will be fed
robably along with every angler in the country, I was delighted to hear last month that Scotland’s first commercial-
‘This may prove to be the defining moment in an eco-friendly future for Scotland’s aquaculture industry’
recently and was immediately impressed by his infectious enthusiasm and a far-reaching vision. As he pointed out, by 2050 an estimated 9.2 billion people will be walking our planet and a vast number will have no access to basic nutrition. With the increasingly devastating impacts of climate change resulting in soaring commodity prices, a key concern for human- ity must be long-term food security. Unless we change the existing methods of agriculture and aquaculture we will not be able to deliver the world’s food requirements. What also immediately struck me about
Robertson was his obvious passion for wild salmon – indeed he used to be the PR guru for the Atlantic Salmon Trust in a former life. He reminded me that many of Scotland’s origi- nal pioneer fish farmers had a genuine affinity for the wild creature that they were attempting to domesticate, and that many of the mistakes that they were making, and which would come back to haunt them, were made unwittingly. Much of this understanding of the wild species has been lost in the industry over the years and it is refreshing to see it take centre stage again. The Fishfrom venture had to jump through
two years of hoops to gain support from the Scottish Government, and there remain nervous vested interests in the large Norwegian multi-nationals that still question its sustaina- ble credentials and financial viability. But don’t forget that these companies did the same when the first independent land-based smolt farms appeared a decade ago and now practically all new juvenile salmon units being built are of the land-based variety. What is not known though is whether the same technology can be used on a genuinely commercial scale for the final grow-out from smolt through to adult. Robertson’s dream may not end up feeding
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the planet but he has far larger plans in the pipeline should this initial venture prove successful. One thing is for sure though – while the salmon farm industry has provided a vital economic lifeline to local communities in the West Highlands, it cannot continue as it is. The granting of this planning permission at Tayin- loan may just prove to be the defining moment in an eco-friendly future for the Scottish aqua- culture industry.
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