Norwegian Fish Farm Disease and Lice Costs

Two recurrent themes in fish farm environmental damage are: disease losses and out of control sea lice and their associated diseases.

See: http://www.undercurrentnews.com/2015/03/02/norway-salmon-farmers-q4s-confirm-sea-lice-as-key-driver-in-2015-supply/.

You judge for yourself::

1.      February 2015, Rabobank analyst Gorjan Nikolik suggested sea lice management will continue to define the global salmon picture this year.

2.      In 2015, Chile is once more constrained by its own biological situation.

3.      In Norway: Capacity growth is hard to come by... will involve managing all sanitary conditions, including pancreas disease (PD) and amoebic gill disease (AGD).

4.      In Norway, Marine Harvest: spent on sea lice problems: NOK 53m in Q1, NOK 80m in Q2, NOK 74m in Q3 and NOK 96m in Q4, for a year total of NOK 303m, or $40m.

Comment: The cost of seal ice chemicals was 70% higher than in 2013.

5.      Marine Harvest noted: NOK 199m… relating to sea lice mitigation and extraordinary mortality. [Pancreatic Disease and Amoebic Gill Disease].

6.      Salmar had: a challenging situation with respect to salmon lice and PD” in its central Norway region.

7.      Norway Royal Salmon: production cost was still high as a result of costs associated with AGD and PD.

8.      Norway Royal Salmon: was indicted by Norwegian government over misrepresenting sea lice numbers.

9.      Grieg’s costs were up: as a result of lice treatment, and mortality due to gill disease in Shetland, as well as fish that had been affected by PD in Norway's Rogaland region.

Then go back and read this post, a study that says one third to one half of global aquaculture product is lost to diseases. That was 2002, and in 2015, disease and lice are still big killers. All of this could be eliminated by on-land fish farms, and no exposing of wild Pacfic salmon to lice and disease from fish farms: