Fish Farming Today - Published on: March
24, 2003
A SHETLAND salmon farming business is set
to become the UK's biggest cod farm yet as
600,000 codlings are due to be delivered to
cages belonging to Johnson Sea Farms during
this summer.
The massive
investment into diversifying to a new farmed
species comes at a time of continuously poor
prices for farmed salmon and builds on
expertise Johnson Sea Farms have won with two
smaller consignments of codlings during the
last 18 months.
Director of the
Vidlin-based company, Ivor Johnson said that
the family-run business felt it was time to
move away from salmon.
He said: "The
salmon is very poor this year. It is
impossible to break even on salmon.At the same
time Chile is making money and is expanding
its salmon production. It is a bleak looking
picture."
He added that
the success with two smaller batches of
codlings (14,000 and 24,000), which were
delivered to the company in January and
December last year, had given them the
confidence to proceed with the much larger
scale investment.
Mr Johnson said
the 600,000 codlings, to be delivered by
Machrihanish Marine Farms in Argyll, were due
in June and September this year. |
