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With the help of artificial intelligence and new technologies, the health of farmed salmon will be improved.
That’s at least the goal of the iFarm project, where agricultural company Cermaq will follow each swimming salmon in specially constructed culture cages.
– Now we will see how fish thrive in cages specially adapted for iFarm, and if nothing and behaves as we intended, says project manager Karl Fredrik Ottem at Cermaq.
After six months of construction and assembly, the first fish were released in Steigen last week.
– In the long term, the intention is to be able to classify individuals. Whether it’s based on size with a view to slaughter, or on individuals who are in optimal health or health for treatment or to be removed from production, Ottem says.
Each individual salmon passes sensors
In the new cages, some 150,000 salmon are kept in the depths of the water with a net.
But the salmon depends on surfacing for air and filling the swimming berries.
To do this, the salmon must pass through a chamber on the way. There it is registered and recognized by a sensor.
The sensor creates a unique, three-dimensional image of each individual. This should make it easier to say something about the condition of the fish.
– In the future, it will be possible to see if there is a significant difference between iFarm and normal cages..
The sensors themselves won’t be in place until November.
– Until then, we will spend some time observing the behavior of the fish in the cage. How it moves and how it eats, so we can make any adjustments before turning off the sensor, says Ottem.
A sensor scans the fish in the cage and uses automatic image processing to recognize each individual.
Photo: Cermaq
In the startup phase
The iFarm project will last for five years and during this period the technology will continue to develop. The goal is to improve the health and well-being of the salmon fish that live in the cages.
According to Cermaq, the sensors can read the details of each individual. If damage or lice are found on the fish, it goes to another area.
– For us in the project, it is incredibly exciting that we have come so far that the first prototype of the cage has been assembled and launched, and that we have released fish. Now will be a very exciting period ahead, says Ottem.
Cermaq hopes the system will help improve the health and overall vision of the fish.
– We are talking about quite a few individuals and a lot of data. We are talking here of several million people.
Nature Conservation Association: Not Enough
At the Norwegian Society for Conservation of Nature, they believe it is good to have more knowledge about the health of farmed salmon.
But they believe that the project alone will not solve the health problems.
– We believe this should be resolved by bringing the farming to closed systems in the sea, where the fish are physically separated from the environment so that salmon lice do not enter, says expert advisor on biodiversity Ingvild Fonn Asmervik of the Nature Conservation Association .
He adds that the closed facilities will also help cleaner fish, which are used to remove lice from farmed salmon.
