Changing fortunes

The first half of the ‘90s witnessed a turnaround in the company’s fortunes. The programme of rapid expansion in the previous decade had, by 1988, led to a number of problems that were making life difficult on the farms and, crucially, costing the company money. By 1995 these challenges had not only been addressed but the company was once again in the black and enjoying commercial success.

This transformation was down to a number of factors. The first was addressing the issues of expansion and overstocking, namely the dual threat of furunculosis and sea lice. A number of measures were put in place in the early ‘90s to combat this, including: halving the number of smolts put to sea; introducing single year-class sites; and reducing stress on the fish by introducing swim-throughs to clean nets and devices to count and grade fish as they swam from one pen to another.

Perhaps the single most important measure in the fight against disease was fallowing, allied with single loch management agreements. In the late ‘80s Marine Harvest made an agreement with McConnell Salmon, which a couple of smaller farmers, to fallow Loch Sunart. On February 14, 1990, the loch was fallowed, with no-one allowed to restock for six weeks. There were also agreements regarding the quality of smolts put back into the loch, as well as the treatments and tests that had to be done.

Such an agreement was a world first, and the results were extraordinary. Within two cycles survival increased from 50 per cent to around 93 per cent, and the size of the fish doubled. This led to further agreements between Marine Harvest and McConnell Salmon, and was a huge turning point for the industry, and paved the way for collaboration as a means of solving industry-wide issues. It was undoubtedly agreements such as this that prevented ISA from having a more significant impact on Scottish farms when it appeared in the late ‘90s.