Salmon Farming

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Salmon Farming
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sean
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42219
Location: North Devon

Posted: Fri Nov 13, 09 11:43 pm Post subject:
Sorry, I got that the wrong way round. Anyway, it's the intensity level that's important I think, maybe. Stocking trout in a pond so that people can fish for them is maybe sustainable, hoovering up sand eels to feed mass market fish isn't. I think.

Hairyloon

Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.

Posted: Fri Nov 13, 09 11:49 pm Post subject:

mihto wrote:

Of course they are different species. Salmo trutta is our indigenous brown trout. The rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss is North American.

Then that is more than just a different species, they're different genera.

mihto

Joined: 03 Feb 2008
Posts: 3273
Location: West coast of Norway

Posted: Fri Nov 13, 09 11:53 pm Post subject:

sean wrote:

Sorry, I got that the wrong way round. Anyway, it's the intensity level that's important I think, maybe. Stocking trout in a pond so that people can fish for them is maybe sustainable, hoovering up sand eels to feed mass market fish isn't. I think.

Absolutely. We do not stock fish in ponds here; there are plenty of lakes and rivers to fish in at no or very little cost. These fish are not fed, they are just wild. We buy fishing cards only in salmon rivers. My favourite lake on my way home from work cost me nothing.

It is the mass market and the enormous profit which is the problem. The greed to make a fast buck is incredible. People here on the coast get stinking rich and there is nothing like ENOUGH in this business.

They will hang on untill the last sand eel is only a memory.

Hairyloon

Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.

Posted: Sat Nov 14, 09 12:09 am Post subject:
Would not then the thing to do be to farm sand eels?

Lorrainelovesplants

Joined: 13 Oct 2006
Posts: 6521
Location: Dordogne

Posted: Sat Nov 14, 09 8:46 am Post subject:

We had the discussion about Salmon last night. My mother loves Salmon, but we dont eat it (OH's cousin is a marine biologist who warned us a few years back not to eat ANY salmon as the farmed stocks had had something wrong with them that had now passed to wild salmon, and now they all have it - some sort of chemical/hormonal thing.

Now I was already aware of the high levels of Oestrogen in all fish stocks, but....do we buy it for my 83 year old mum, who will probably die of something else, and not fish hormones?

mihto

Joined: 03 Feb 2008
Posts: 3273
Location: West coast of Norway

Posted: Sat Nov 14, 09 11:27 am Post subject:

Lorrainelovesplants wrote:

I have never heard about chemical/hormonal thing; there is however a parasite (Lepeophteirus salmonis) which has run amok and is certainly damaging the wild fish.

There is nothing wrong with the farmed fish as such and it is safe to eat. The problems are the ethics in fish farming. If there was a chemical problem I would certainly know.

Ronnie

Joined: 11 Jun 2009
Posts: 73
Location: Highlands

Posted: Wed Feb 10, 10 10:59 pm Post subject:

Hairyloon wrote:

mihto wrote:

There must be a way to farm fish as well as taking care of the environment.

Hugh FW showed a near perfect system combining a trout farm with a watercress farm.
Water flowed through the watercress, picking up lots of wee critters that live among the roots.
The water flows into the trout tanks.
The trout would eat the critters and fertilise the water.
The water is pumped back to the top where it flows through the watercress picking up wee critters...

It is also easy and fairly sound to farm herbivorous fish, just they are not popular at market.

That was a good example of Aquaponics - it's a really neat solution. You can ultimately produce vegetables, protein, and enhance biodiversity all at the same time.

Last edited by Ronnie on Wed Feb 10, 10 11:36 pm; edited 1 time in total

Hairyloon

Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.

Posted: Wed Feb 10, 10 11:14 pm Post subject:
Funnily enough, we were talking about salmon farming just yesterday... while eating salmon that claimed to be "responsibly farmed". What does that mean, and can we believe it?

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Thu Feb 11, 10 8:31 am Post subject:

Hairyloon wrote:

marigold wrote:

I try (though probably don't always succeed) to only eat wild-caught fish.

Salmon is not the way, but without fish farming, we have not a hope in hell of feeding the worlds population.

But much of the western way of farming is turning something edible into something which is more of a luxury.

Isn't salmon farming a bit of a red herring? (Couldn't resist the pun, sorry). Isn't far more damage done producing farmed shrimps/prawns etc in the tropics?

Surely the sustainable method would be to stop treating rivers and the seas as dumping grounds, stop over fishing and manage them responsibly? Would there be a need for farming then? Of course, it'll not happen until it's far too late.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Thu Feb 11, 10 9:29 am Post subject:

Treacodactyl wrote:

Isn't salmon farming a bit of a red herring? (Couldn't resist the pun, sorry). Isn't far more damage done producing farmed shrimps/prawns etc in the tropics?

Different kinds of harm, in different kinds of ways.

Prawn farming, when in relatively low input, extensive farming systems, isn't that harmful. The problem with that is that you don't get enough output per unit area or per cash input so the tendency has been to move on to ever more intensive systems. At high stocking density you get problems with making groundwater salty, with eutrophication due to waste water being full of nutrients, and of course the prawns get diseases (viral conditions like, if memory serves, taura syndrome).

And of course with the trend towards 'value added' products from such systems, with processing on site, you've got great big piles of prawn heads and shells to dispose of too.

As far as I can see, there is no 'ethical' option when purchasing, say, tiger prawns. They're air freighted in from from nations that have been bulldozing mangrove forests to construct prawn farms, which continue to cause damage till the site is so badly polluted that they have to move elsewhere and do it all again.

But it doesn't have to be that way. It will be that way because 'we' want cheap imported luxury foods.

Anyway... The FAO have been saying for donkeys years that we're taking too much fish out of the sea. We can't feed everyone that way because we're overfishing. You'll also see reports that say we need more fish to feed everyone. The answer has to be aquaculture, but it has to be sustainable aquaculture, and that'll be expensive.

Hairyloon

Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.

Posted: Thu Feb 11, 10 9:53 am Post subject:

cab wrote:

The answer has to be aquaculture, but it has to be sustainable aquaculture, and that'll be expensive.

Not necessarily expensive, it just won't be salmon or prawns.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Thu Feb 11, 10 10:01 am Post subject:

Hairyloon wrote:

cab wrote:

The answer has to be aquaculture, but it has to be sustainable aquaculture, and that'll be expensive.

Not necessarily expensive, it just won't be salmon or prawns.

Necessarily expensive. Unless you're hurling nutrients in (in the form of other biomass or fertiliser to make plankton grow faster) and stocking at high density (which will have sustainability problems) then you have to be extensive rather than intensive. And that costs more money.

Hairyloon

Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.

Posted: Thu Feb 11, 10 11:53 am Post subject:
Depressingly, I just cannot be bothered to argue. Frankly, it does not matter how expensive it is. Money is all imaginary anyway.

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Thu Feb 11, 10 12:01 pm Post subject:
I wonder how expensive it would be if we changed our attitudes and used what we already have? There's loads of fresh water places that could provide some edible fish rather than just sport. I bet you could produce more kg of fish that the total amount of salmon.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46249
Location: yes

Posted: Thu Feb 11, 10 12:10 pm Post subject:
fried sand eels anyone ? better toasted the carp ponds of the middle ages worked on a basic feed of spent barley from the brewing and clean streams to give good water but fish was a premium product to make it economic soyalent green anyone?

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