..while MPs embark on Norway fact finder

AS Iceland gears up to expand its aquaculture sector, a group from the country’s parliament, the Althingi, has completed a fact finding mission to study how the Norwegians successfully developed their own industry.

Eleven members of the parliamentary employment committee had been in Bergen for the North Atlantic Seafood Forum (NASF) last month and then went to see how a fish farm operates.

The group, comprising six women and five men, visited one of the lesser known, family owned salmon and trout businesses, some 30 miles outside Bergen, before going on to look at a feed station and at sea farming operations and research bodies.

Speaking on behalf of the committee, Lilja Rafney Magnúsdóttir, said she thought the visit would come in useful when future legislation on aquaculture is discussed at parliamentary committee level.

‘I think the trip has been particularly informative because we have been able to learn about what the Norwegians have done well, as well as understanding how to avoid some of the problems they have faced.’

Meanwhile, a leading Norwegian industry analyst has said Iceland’s salmon farmers can learn lessons from Norway.

Dag Sletmo, DNB senior vice president and seafood analyst, who addressed Iceland’s annual aquaculture conference in Reykjavik last month, said in a LinkedIn post: ‘Iceland has a large potential in salmon farming, bigger than Norway relative to the size of the population.

‘The annual value creation per job in this industry is NOK 3 million in Norway, compared to the national average of NOK 1 million (ex oil). And most of those jobs are in small coastal communities which may not have survived without them.’

This, he said, was a similar situation to the West and East Fjords in Iceland.

Sletmo said of the Norwegian experience: ‘There are many pitfalls, including regulations. Regulations should be very strict in terms of biosecurity, otherwise liberal.

‘Norway started out way too strict (nobody could own more than one licence), Chile started out way too liberal. Both countries have now migrated towards the middle, with much better results.’