Land-based & Recirculation – Kuterra Salmon
Inside story
WHILST THE FIRST COHORT OF SALMON TO BE HARVESTED IN A LAND-BASED CLOSED CONTAINMENT SYSTEM OUTSIDE OF DENMARK IS ENJOYING MARKET SUCCESS, TIME WILL TELL WHETHER OR NOT IT IS COMMERCIALLY VIABLE
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AS technology has been around for 50 years or so, but until Langsand Laks – which has just announced it putting a hold on operations for a year – built its
facility in Denmark, it had never been used for the commercial-scale Atlantic salmon market. Kuterra was established in 2010 after the ‘Namgis First Nation – which governs northern Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada – voiced concern about the concentration of open net cage farms in its core territory and about changes in its marine environment. The decision was made to explore alternative ways of sustainably farming Atlantic salmon. To
this effect, ‘Namgis First Nation signed a Memo- randum of Understanding with an organisation called Save Our Salmon Marine Conservation Foundation, and together they began investigat- ing the viability of RAS as a possible solution. Construction began in 2012 and, in March 2013, the fi rst smolts arrived – from a hatchery also located on Vancouver Island. The fi rst harvest took place in April of this year. The capital cost of this initial phase was nine million Canadian dollars, of which both Tides Salmon Aquaculture Innovation fund and Sus- tainable Development and Technology Canada – a federal body – provided three million and
‘Namgis First Nation one million. The rest was made up of number of groups and trusts. Kuterra is 100 per cent owned by ‘Namgis First Nation; its CEO is Garry Ullstrom and its Operations Manager is Cathal Dinneen. The costs were particularly high because such a system had never been attempted before, so everything had to be overbuilt. The company estimates that the next phase of construction will have a reduced cost of around 30 per cent. As it stands, the facility is made up of one module of fi ve tanks, with an annual capacity of 470 metric tonnes. The smolts are divided into cohorts; at steady state, each cohort will con-
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