| Thank you for your thoughful and interesting reply! First off, you are absolutely correct in fish welfare being a huge issue. I am in no way condoning the current practices that lead to an average of 20% mortalities in the sea phase in norway, and around 5-10% in regions such as tasmania not affected by sea lice. Cleaner fish is also a worrying issue with very questionable fish health pactices. Fortunately there are stronger regulations being implemented, that will help remedy some of these issues. One trivial example is that farmers are now required to feed the cleaner fish, whereas they were not before. I agree that you can absolutely see some horribel looking cages and fish with health issues. The industry explanation is that the percentage that is sick will most likely swim toward the surface and thus give the wrong impression. I say, increase the omega 3 from 1% to 3% and imrpove the quality of the smolt we will surely see benefits. both offshore and land-based have their issues. net-pen is incredibly efficient and beautiful in its simplicity when it works and the locality is optimal. Salmon will be reared at maximum 25kg/m3, but on land they wanna do 50kg+/m3 to be profitable. They wont do more than 100, as you will see decreasing fish health. For comparison tilapia is known to be farmed at 600kg/m3 in some regions. Land-based farming will be interesting for sure, and a compeltely new set of issues regarding pathogens and Co2, H2S, NH4 problems. I'm sure they will figure it out. Atlantic Sapphire sure has a lot riding on figuring fish health on land out. Not very promising with the big emergency slaughter the other week. let me know if you wanna have a chat at some point, always intersting to look at the industry with different eyes. |