In his former role, with Benchmark Genetics, Perry visited many of the world’s land-based salmon producers and, looking back on the year, he sees them as continuing to gain momentum, despite some well publicised setbacks.
“We've seen continued growth in land-based; there are now over 150 companies globally driving this, predominantly in Atlantic salmon. But I would say the really interesting development globally in 2024 has been the increased breadth of investment into other salmonids, such as rainbow trout and Artic char, as well as some marine species,” he explains.
“Negative news reports certainly slowed investment trajectory of the land-based sector, and while there are still challenges, with reports of system failures and off-flavour issues, these are well understood are not insurmountable, and in the meantime have perhaps accelerated the divergence of both species and system design we’ve seen this year,” he adds
Perry sees land-based salmon farming in some geographies having distinct advantages over others.
“I think it's got extra benefits in countries that do not have access to farming salmon at sea, like in Japan, where Proximar and Pure Salmon should do well, because they don't have that logistical cost of moving the fish to market. Local consumers are discerning and want quality salmon that is very fresh,” he points out.
“Or if you are somewhere that has cheap electricity or access to groundwater such as in Iceland, then you're in a perfect position to do land-based. It's one mechanism for counteracting climate change,” he adds.
Indeed, Perry is concerned about the impact that rising sea temperatures are having on traditional salmon farms.
“In the lower reaches of the salmon sector temperatures are escalating year on year and we're seeing production moving to higher latitudes. But issues can be mitigated by better environmental control within the pens, like the use of bubble curtains to protect the fish from algal blooms and jellyfish,” he points out.
“Chilean producers went up to West Coast Canada to share industry knowledge and have now implemented the same tactics to great effect. I saw big differences in the pens that have the addition of nanobubble oxygenation cage support system: advances in growth, better robustness of fish, fewer wounds because there's less stress on the fish. In Chile, mortality levels are now visibly coming down. They are optimising production through introducing technology. It's a key area of focus for us, with in country support for sector growth across multiple species: coho, rainbow trout and Atlantic salmon,” he explains.
“With our changing climate we are now seeing implementation of this proven technology in Scotland, combined with satellite tracking of algal blooms and monitoring of the pen environment. The key is to have actionable information in good time, the systems in place to mitigate change and maintain optimal environment for minimal operational cost. You need to know what's going on in the water if you're going to implement these additional systems because it'd be expensive to run them all the time,” he adds.
Perry believes that technology can lead to many improvements in farming.
“Technology and AI mean that farmers have the ability to gather more data on the fish than ever before, and improve operational efficiency. Traditionally farmers have relied on sampling a small number of fish to estimate the overall biomass in the pen, but now with biomass cameras we can measure tens of thousands of fish a day, which gives a much better idea of not just average weight, but also distribution of fish within the pen. And all of that fits well with optimising when to perhaps passively grade or to harvest,” he explains. For years as a fish health clinician I focused on population medicine, now the technology is there to record data and track health at the individual level, and it is truly game changing for the industry.
“But it's escalated so much in the last couple of years that it's almost too much for the farmer at the cage level. So it's down to us as suppliers to present this data in their easiest, most actionable forms. One key aim is to reduce the handling of the fish because any handling results in fish not feeding, then we focus on improving feeding efficiency and information flow down the line to optimize health planning, logistics and harvest expectations ” he adds.
Nursery sites for salmon
Meanwhile, Perry notes that some companies are looking to change their production models where possible.
“Strategies are starting to pay off, not only are companies putting larger smolts out to sea, but – in Scotland – Mowi is putting some of their salmon through seawater nursery sites. They have the bulk of their smolts going through RAS initially. Some of those will go out to freshwater lochs and then either go directly to sea or through Loch Etive, which is a brackish loch site where they can grow to a bigger size, before moving them out to the more dynamic sea environment. It's a multi-stage process where you’re both spreading your risks and shortening the cycle in the on growing cages,” he explains.
Offshore production
While many companies are looking towards land-based ways of avoiding environmental challenges, others are looking towards offshore, high energy sites.
“I had a great trip to Japan this year and saw some yellowtail farms that are using submersible pens. I haven't yet visited submersible pens in the salmon sector, but these bigger offshore systems make sense when you are incorporating them into a shortened marine cycle and they need to be submersible because during storms it can get quite turbulent,” he points out.
However, he thinks regulations are holding up their advent in the salmon sector.
“In Scotland, farmers are probably going to have to give up some existing licences to get new ones for offshore, but I don't think there's been any commitments from the regulators to that effect so the sector remains in limbo. In Norway the regulators have made it more difficult, as offshore farms currently cannot offset the ground rent tax from offshore investment," Perry notes.
Looking ahead
One project that Perry is looking forward to being involved in relates to making more use of processing side streams which have been traditionally viewed as waste.
“I'm excited by this planned ocean cluster focusing on the zero waste Scotland initiative the industry is engaging with through Seafood Scotland. It’s not just about reducing mortality levels on the farms, but also making sure that everything that has been produced protein-wise can be utilised. Every fish counts and can be treated in the same way regardless of life stage. It’s a concept that is being realised in the cod sector by the Iceland Ocean Cluster, where they aim to use each of the different components for specialist products to improve the efficiency, profitability and the ESGs of the businesses involved,” he explains.
While Perry is broadly optimistic about the salmon sector’s prospects, he is troubled by the fish health issues that have plagued much of the Norwegian industry.
“One concerning aspect is the prevalence of wounds and sea lice, especially in northern Norway this year. With higher latitudes starting to see increased pressure from warming sea temperatures it highlights that we do have limited tools in our arsenal in terms of pharmaceutical approaches and with historical mechanical approaches in frequent review due to welfare concerns, we do need more breadth and capacity in the water now, plus an expedited method of legislators reviewing new solutions to increase commercial options in future. Rising sea temperatures will continue to be an issue, but I think we can still learn a lot from other salmon producing countries. There’s a lot of knowledge within the sector and we need to make sure that we're learning from those that have already got through it, invested and improved.
He also sees breeding programmes as having great potential.
“In Tasmania and New Zealand they're looking at genetic approaches to increase the thermal tolerance of salmon where they are perhaps at certain seasons closer to thermal threshold. Gene editing is not going to appear commercially next year, but it's certainly a trend that could allow us to be quicker to cope with the changing environment, where traditional Darwinian selection just cannot keep pace with the breadth of environmental and disease pressures,” he concludes.
