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– We must avoid making the mistakes that others have made, says Terje Mikalsen. It requests to produce 6,000 tonnes of salmon at Farsund in Sørlandet.
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Entrepreneur Terje Mikalsen is best known for starting Norsk Data and Hafslund Nycomed. In 1996, he sold the latter for a profit of more than one billion kronor.
Now, the founder of the series wants to start with the land production of salmon in his municipality of origin. Basically your EcoFishCircle company is requesting to produce 6000 tons per year.
– We have room for more, but then there will be many more impact evaluations. We will have to deal with those problems later, he tells Aftenposten / E24.
With him on the team is Arne Gravdal. He has farmed salmon on land in Scotland with the Niri Company.
Wait to make it public
Production will take place near Lista airport in Farsund. There, her family owns several thousand acres.
Terje Mikalsen, here from an NHO conference in 2008.
Ingar Storfjell
– I don’t want to quantify how much we want to produce in the long run, but it will often be much higher if the first bit goes well. It’s close to the sea, so the fish can be transported directly to Germany, says Mikalsen.
He hopes to have a license by the turn of the year and plans to release fish before next summer.
– We hope to go public in due course. But it’s best to do it when you’ve gotten a little further, she says.
The biggest advantage of producing on land is that you don’t have to pay for the license. In addition, there is less logistics and you can have better control of the biology.
Lice, disease and escape problems are now agriculture’s greatest challenges at sea.
Dagens Næringsliv wrote about Mikalsen’s plans to “revolutionize” agriculture on the whole land in 2018. However, Mikalsen’s plans in Scotland have been postponed as a result of Brexit, he claims.
In Øra in Fredrikstad, the country’s first salmon farm is on land. Fredrikstad Seafoods has started slaughtering fish and hopes to soon expand to the US Here one of the facility’s two cages.
Hanna Kristin Hjardar / E24
Analyst: – Not very profitable
Analyst Carl-Emil Kjølås Johannessen at Pareto closely monitors the aquaculture industry. It talks about a number of problems related to onshore production.
– So far, it is very unprofitable. No one has benefited from it, even though the price of salmon has been high, he tells Aftenposten / E24.
– There are some downsides to being small due to fixed costs. Many have also had problems of high mortality, toxic gases and premature puberty, he adds.
Furthermore, he says that some of the challenges have already been resolved. However, there is great uncertainty associated with costs and growth conditions.
However, Mikalsen is confident in his own plans.
– We have every reason to believe in profitability. We must avoid making the mistakes that others have made. There are reasonably understandable problems and good monitoring systems, he says.
– Mortality in terrestrial facilities is very low if you do not make the usual mistakes. Much of the mortality is due to H2S outbreaks as a result of sludge accumulation on a hook. If you take care of yourself, you avoid it, he adds.
H2S, or hydrogen sulfide, is a toxic gas that can cause acute fish death. Several installations on the ground have had problems with H2S.
Fighting to raise money
Kjølås Johannessen says that uncertainty makes it difficult for investors to get money.
– Many have tried without success. But those who have succeeded have aroused a lot of interest. Share prices have also risen a lot, he says.
– What makes investors feel insecure?
– Technology-related uncertainty and competition among investors is one of the reasons more people struggle to raise money.
Low production on land
In Norway, so far only Fredrikstad Seafoods produces salmon on land. However, there is no shortage of plans.
Figures from the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries show that 19 private companies are licensed to produce a total of 169,000 tonnes of salmon on land (see data box). By comparison, 1.4 million tonnes of seawater was produced in Norway in 2019.
Also around the world, several companies have started farming salmon on land, but in volume it is still like a drop in the ocean, compared to farming at sea.
In Homestead, outside Miami, Florida, Johan Andreassen de Møre is building a giant fish farm on land. The company is called Atlantic Sapphire.
Carl Alfred Dahl
The largest fish of them all, Atlantic Sapphire, operates at its facility in Florida, USA, where 10,000 tonnes are produced annually. By 2031, the plan is to reach 220,000 a year. The company is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange.
Kjølås Johannessen believes that land-based production will eventually be so large that it will drive down the price of salmon.
– But I believe that production at sea will continue to be the cheapest. Therefore, volumes will remain at the current level, he says.
