Salmon in the desert
Why rearing salmon in the desert ‘makes complete sense’
WHEN Norwegian fish farmer and businessman Lukas Havn first had his vision to grow salmon in the Saudi desert his aim was to improve food security in the region. Today, that goal has become even more pressing, as Emirates flights to the Middle East join the global lockdown and the area’s heavy reliance on imports is laid bare.
Havn, CEO of Vikings Label and based for the past three years in Dubai, UAE, outlined his plans to build an RAS salmon farm in Saudi Arabia at Aqua Nor last August.
Despite the current crisis, the project is going ahead and he hopes construction will begin in September/October this year.
The first phase will produce 5,000 tonnes of salmon, but the scheme is a grand one, with other species, a hatchery, processing facilities and an R&D centre all housed within a vast Fish City, at an as yet undecided stretch of desert beside the Persian Gulf.
‘We have always seen that certain regions should have their own supply of protein sources, especially to feed their own people,’ said Havn, speaking to Fish Farmer from his home in Dubai, days after flights to the Middle East were suspended.
‘Everyone talks about food security and usually it’s just talk, but now it is reality…when imports stop you see how important it is.’
The United Arab Emirates imports around 90 per cent of its seafood, along with most other food in the country.
The Saudis, meanwhile, already farm some species, including shrimp, but estimate there will be a market deficit of seafood of 800,000 tonnes in 12 years.
Havn has been importing and distributing salmon in the UAE for more than three years and although he is now 95 per cent focused on his new farming project, he still has one client.
With trading in fresh fish ‘impossible’ at present, he was supplying only frozen salmon, and had a consignment on the way by boat. He said he didn’t know if any freight was getting in by plane because people had stopped asking for it.
The domestic market in the long term, though, will hopefully grow, but not on its own, said Havn.
‘There is a big tradition here for meat and to switch to seafood there is a job to be done by government and farmers.’
The Saudi regime has launched a campaign to boost consumption of seafood to 13kg per capita by the end of this year and then to 22kg, the global average, by 2030.
Helping to achieve this will be a targeted increase in aquaculture production from 77,000 tonnes a year to 600,000 tonnes by 2030.
Vikings Label is looking to the Middle East market because, said Havn, ‘we want to have a super fresh product and as soon as we start packing, shipping or flying it that’s not the same’.
‘We’re creating this for more food security for the region with hope to expand to make it an export commodity as well.’
To this end, he and his team are currently working remotely, with RAS experts in Denmark, to get the initial phase of their salmon farm started.
They have raised some of the $90-100 million needed, all so far from Saudi investors, and now just need the final financing for the first part of the project.
Sites are planned for Saudi Arabia and Oman, and the selection process is in progress, said Havn.
‘We are not delayed, but need to wait until we can start flying again; we need to be there in person with the marine teams.
‘We have made good progress and we are working closely with private and governmental institutions in both Saudi Arabia and Oman.
‘We have sites in both countries we are researching and testing and expect clarity on where we will build our first project within the next few months, and construction will start shortly after that, all of this depending on this current situation, of course.
‘We are building a 5,000 tonne per year salmon farm as stage one in this project [with salmon eggs imported from Iceland], and then we will expand to one or more other locations in the Middle East, plus other species, hatcheries, processing and distribution facilities, and a R&D and training centre.’
Other species could include sea bream and sea bass, which are not hard to farm in the ocean, said Havn, but there are risks, not least red tide which takes the oxygen out of the water and kills the fish.
The Fish City, ‘the future of sustainable aquaculture’ according to Vikings Label, could also feature yellowtail king fish farms and hamour (a local species) production too.
‘We want to create a hatchery for local species to help other farms with better product so they don’t have to import their fingerlings.
‘We have developed systems for farming all of these species on land. We’re not only salmon but we’re starting with salmon because we have big knowledge of the market and we have the buyers and the network.’
The Norwegians’ partners will include Danish RAS experts Graakjaer, but
Havn said they want to be ‘flexible and self-sustained’, and not tied down to specific suppliers.
‘We believe that in order to create a perfect project we must be able to choose the best option from here and there.’
With the experienced Morten Malle as chief technical officer, and consultancy companies in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, ‘we are growing stronger and stronger as a team’, he said.
Havn believes land based RAS farms ‘make complete sense’ in some markets, such as the Middle East, which is so far from anywhere that produces salmon.
But he has reservations about those with no background in the industry jumping on the global land based farming bandwagon.
‘It is a little worrying that there are a lot of projects in the pipeline looking for investment that are not run by fish people, but finance people who want to buy expertise.
‘They sit in an office and the next day they want to build a RAS...I’m really curious to see how that will play out in the future.
‘The last thing we look at is the money part of it, it is important to get money from investors but we are doing it for other reasons than the financial ones.’
Havn comes from a salmon farming background and his father, Tore Havn (CFO of Vikings Label), has been on the financial side of salmon farming for more than 30 years – in Norway and in Shetland and the rest of Scotland.
‘We are establishing ourselves as leaders of sustainable aquaculture, and we are bringing tech and knowledge into the region and we want to help the whole region grow and be successful.
‘We are aiming for five species and up to 50,000 tonnes per year in the next five years, but what the future will bring we will see, it might be that, or it might be bigger.
‘We are here to hopefully start something successful in line with, for example Saudi Vision 2030 and Oman Vision 2040, where they all aim to grow in many sectors, with aquaculture being one of the main sectors.’
“Everyone talks about food security but when imports stop you see how important is” it