MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falklands, visit from Shetland salmon expert

John Goodlad, expert advisor on seafood investment funds and three times author, spoke about his latest publication, ‘Food from the Sea: The Future of Seafood’.

Shetlands’ author and former fish farmer John Goodlad visited the Falklands this week to give a public talk, at the invitation of Unity Marine (*). The expert advisor for two seafood investment funds and three times author, spoke about his latest publication, ‘Food from the Sea: The Future of Seafood’. Falklands TV talked with him about his experiences and views on the future of sustainable seafood and the potential for salmon farming in the Falklands.

“I am not here to be an apologist for salmon farming and I am not in the Falklands to say that the Falklanders should become salmon farmers. That’s your decision. What I am here to do is too try and, if I can help you with that debate.

“If you came to Shetlands and asked people is there are any pollution from salmon farming? I would say the vast majority, if not the entirety of the Shetlands population would say NO, there’s not. In 45 years of salmon farming history in Shetlands there’s not been an adverse impact what so ever on wild fish stocks around Shetlands. There were criticisms at the early stage by many people saying this is going to spoil Shetlands nature wilderness, but salmon did come, and the unspoiled wilderness to some extent might have gone. What impact has that had on the tourism in Shetlands? There are far more tourists coming to Shetlands now than ever before. We still have wonderful natural beauty and the tour operators now fit in stops at the salmon farms, looking at salmon and mussels’ farms as part of their tours and saying this is the wonderful Shetlands modern Shetlands and this is how Shetlanders grow salmon.

“If we are going to feed the world, we’ve got 8 billion people on the planet and in a short time 11 billion by 2050, where do we get all that extra food from? If we are going to get it from the land, we are going to have to cut down more rainforests.

“The alternative I argue in my book is to look at the sea. The carbon foot print at sea includes farm fish, which is incredibly low. It takes about 3 to 4 kilos of greenhouse emissions to produce one kilo of salmon. For chicken it is between 8 and 10 kilos of greenhouse gas emissions for a kilo of chicken meat. For pork and lamb it is between 12 and 15 kilos. For beef it can be e as high as 40 to 60 kilos. So as I argue in my book, if you want to do your personal bit for trying to save our planet you should eat more fish!

(*) Unity Marine is the company interests in setting up a salmon farming industry in the Falklands Islands