An open letter has called on the Scottish Government to “urgently commission an independent Cost-Benefit Analysis of Scotland’s salmon farming industry, to consider its wider economic impacts”.
Until these impacts are assessed, said the letter, signed by a coalition of 54 Scottish businesses, charities, community groups and individuals, “there should be a halt on further growth of the industry."
This call comes ahead of the final day of evidence giving at the Scottish Government's Rural Affairs and Islands Committee's inquiry into salmon farming.
Among those who have signed the letter to the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Islands are a wide range of stakeholders and interested parties. These include restaurants, vets, scientists, angling associations.
The conservation charity Wildfish, Ullapool Sea Savers, the Scottish Creel Fishermen’s Federation, Slow Food Scotland, Scotland: the Big Picture and the Oykel Bridge Hotel, have all signed, as has Wildland Limited, the rewilding business set up by billionaire Anders Povlsens, author Cressida Cowell and the adventurer and campaigner Dr Cal Major.
Rachel Mulrenan, Scotland Director at WildFish, said: “Over the course of this inquiry, the salmon farming has furiously tried to deflect attention by characterising any opposition as marginal, extremist, ‘activists’. However, this letter shows that the concerns about salmon farming are widespread across our country, from businesses to youth groups, from community representatives to conservation experts, from vets to environmental research scientists.
The letter asked the Cabinet Secretary to “urgently re-evaluate your policy on the open-net salmon farming industry, in light of the growing body of evidence demonstrating that the industry causes multiple environmental, welfare and sustainability problems”.
Colin Kirkpatrick, a member of Orkney Trout Fishing Association's environment said: "When ordinary, everyday civilian councillors, serving on regional planning committees are expected to make informed decisions on increasingly complex and complicated planning proposals for salmon farms - then the least they could expect should be independently verified facts and figures. This is simply not the case currently."
The coalition pointed to “peer-reviewed research” that “has found that the economic benefits of the industry have not been adequately weighed against its detrimental impacts on other sectors of Scotland’s economy (not to mention detrimental impacts on the marine environment, without which there can be no blue economic growth).
This paper, ‘The Economic Contribution of Open Cage Salmon Aquaculture to Scotland: A Review of the Available Economic Evidence’ published in 2020, stated: “It would be difficult for the Scottish Government to claim that, in deciding to support industry expansion, it has demonstrably considered the best interests of Scotland as a whole.”
A peer review also agreed with the authors' conclusions that the information currently availablewas not robust enough to inform a decision as to whether salmon aquaculture should be expanded and noted that "the net effects of the industry’s operation have not been assessed at all”.
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The open letter also comes in the wake of the publication of the Scottish Government’s annual Fish Farm Production Survey, which showed that salmon farm production had fallen by 11% last year.
The survey, the coalition's press release pointed out, also showed that the number of people directly employed on Scottish salmon farms decreased in 2023. Since 1990 (during a period of huge salmon industry expansion) the number of full-time jobs on fish farms in the Highlands and Islands region created by the industry has been just 253, an average of only seven per annum.
In 1990 there were 1165 full time staff in Scotland; in 2023 there were 1418.
Ms Mulrenan said: “From the impact on wild fish populations and the wider marine space, to rising mortality rates and the welfare nightmare unfolding on these farms – these are legitimate concerns, and it’s high time the Scottish Government paid attention to the growing unease from the people of Scotland.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Our Vision for Sustainable Aquaculture sets out the Government’s ambitions for the sustainable development of the sector, operating within environmental limits, and which recognises the considerable social and economic benefits the sector delivers.
“I look forward to providing evidence to the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee to discuss the work we are doing to ensure Scottish aquaculture’s sustainability and success.”
A spokesperson for Salmon Scotland said: “However they try to dress it up, these groups want to ban salmon farming and put 12,500 people who live in rural and Highland areas out of work.
“Salmon farmers are focused on farm-raising healthy, nutritious salmon in the most sustainable way and creating jobs and wealth for our coastal communities.”
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