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Ref:722/03 |
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Norway
- May 11, 2003 |
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World’s Largest Salmon Farm
Opens in Norway for Scale-up of Feeding Trials |
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by
Suzi Fraser
AKVAsmart, together
with the Nutreco companies Marine Harvest and
Skretting in Norway, is establishing the world’s
largest pilot salmon and trout farm to test
aquafeeds in commercial conditions.
Operating as the
Centre for Aquaculture Competence (C.A.C.), it is
intended to help |
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modern fish farming
achieve even better results. The first research
fish were transferred to the sea cages April 30 at
C.A.C.’s Langavik location, north of Stavanger,
South-west Norway.
C.A.C. will provide a tool modern fish farming has
lacked – a farm where researchers can test feeds,
feeding and technology under completely realistic,
commercial production conditions.
”The difference between serving dinner for five
and five hundred is more than multiplication: much
research may be required to take research results
from controlled experiments and scale them up to
commercial conditions. We can now work across
disciplines to release an efficiency potential
that we know exists,” said Tor André Giskegjerde,
Managing Director of C.A.C..
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Giskegjerde has
been educated in fish nutrition and is an
expert in fish feed. He has long experience as
a researcher at Nutreco Aquaculture Research
Centre and as Product Manager at Skretting in
Norway. In the last two years he has worked on
feeding technology at AKVAsmart. |
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The three owners,
AKVAsmart, Marine Harvest and Skretting, represent
technology, fish farming and feed. The National
Institute for Nutrition and Seafood Research (NIFES),
the Norwegian Veterinary Institute, Norwegian
College of Veterinary Medicine, Stavanger Regional
College and the environmental foundation Bellona
are permanent business partners of C.A.C..
C.A.C. will be expanded to three fish farming
licences, three times the size of a small
commercial farm. Equipped with the most modern
feed and feeding control equipment, it will
develop and document new solutions in areas such
as food safety, nutrition, feeding technology,
fish health and environmental monitoring.
”One of the biggest challenges in fish farming is
to give the fish the optimum quantity of feed
without having any waste. When you have around
100,000 fish in a cage with a circumference of
100m, precision feeding becomes a science. We need
to develop this science further and we need
realistic conditions in which to do that,” said
Giskegjerde.
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At C.A.C. fish
will be raised in generations as in ordinary
fish farms. Each generation will have a
follow-up team. The trials at the farm will be
interdisciplinary, with opportunities to
improve feed, technology, husbandry,
production economy and fish quality. The fish
will be closely followed from the time they
leave the hatchery until they reach the
supermarkets.
C.A.C. will be used as a training centre where
fish farmers can acquire the latest
competence. Colleges and universities will
also be given the opportunity to use the farm.
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There will be a clear
emphasis on environmental objectives at C.A.C.,
both in its own production and in the competence
it develops and conveys. The nets at the farm will
be free of copper, wrasse will be used on a large
scale to combat lice and new measures to prevent
fish from escaping will have top priority. |
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