Norway designs increased production of salmon, with environmental concern

The Norway, which already produces half of all salmon consumed on the planet, is starting to run new and ambitious projects to multiply by five your fish production, where consumption does not stop growing.
"We can produce five times more until 2050," says Øyvind André Haram, information Director of Norwegian seafood Federation (Sjømat Norge).
According to Haram, Norway, a country of 5.2 million inhabitants, produces every day the equivalent of 14 million of food based on salmon.
In recent years, the demand for salmon fish farming has not stopped growing, and Norway already produces half the salmon consumed on the planet, or 1.3 million tonnes a year.
"There are two major problems that the authorities need to know: the proliferation of fleas from the sea and the avoidance of salmon fish farms to nature," explains AFP Julie Døvle Johansen, of environmental protection NGOS WWF Norway.
The sea flea, parasite that forces the premature sacrifice of thousands of salmon, is costing the sector between 1 billion and 1.5 billion euros per year, according to John Arne Breivik, General Director of a company that combats the parasite.
If they are transmitted, can kill wild salmon, as well as the breeding fish, which can also infect animals, if escape to nature.
In the face of criticism for your little sustainable production, the Nordic country wants to increase your volume using new techniques, whose environmental impact is still unclear.
"The salmon industry and your Ministry have the ambition to double the production capacity in the next 10 or 15 years," he told AFP the Director of Greenpeace in Norway, Truls Gulowsen, which considers this "crazy".
In the fish farm the second largest producer in the world, the Group Lerøy, Hitra, are used "cleaner fish" to try to eliminate the fleas without using pesticides.
The company also has the design of a "pipe-farm", a kind of boat and giant nursery, with its swimming pools filled with seawater, with huge tubes 30 meters deep. The water stays at a constant temperature without being affected by weather changes, and the principle "no problems from parasites," said the Director in France of Lerøy, Jean-Pierre Gonda.
Other similar projects are running, how to fish on the high seas Salmar, group a few months ago. Or called the egg of Marine Harvest, the industry leader, of which only the "shell" is seen on the surface of the water.
All these projects aim to avoid the problem of sea fleas, without having to use chemicals.
However, "this is all very new, and we don't know if it will solve the problems," warns the WWF expert.
"I think there is potentially a great risk", in particular due to possible massive escape of farmed salmon to the sea.