Nutreco moves into cod farming 'on a grand scale'

Nutreco have recently announced their intention to move into cod farming 'on a grand scale' over the next few years. "Cod from fry to the market on a grand scale is our optimistic way of thinking, and we feel the time is right to make a dedicated investment," explained Reid Hole, Director of Technology and Development at Nutreco during a recent interview.

Cod is one of the most important cold water species with wild cod having large and well defined markets. The once abundant and cheap wild caught cod is in danger of becoming a commodity of the past as the effects of overfishing takes its toll. Production has been on the decline over the last few years, production of cod peaked back in 1969 at 4 million tonnes. Since then the rich Newfoundland resource has been depleted with fishing banned for several years in the 1990s. World catch by 1998 had dropped to 1.2 million tonnes. Currently the ban on fishing cod on most of the major North Sea fishing grounds has not helped the situation and outlook for the fishermen who heavily depend on this species.

Fish farming operations have seen cod culture as potentially very promising and have been investigating and developing the techniques needed to raise cod since the 1980s. Scientific studies that have been undertaken on broodstock, spawning, hatching, larvae/fry production, feeding, grow-out and fish quality all appear to make cod culture a viable proposition.

Currently the combined production volumes for Norway, the UK and Canada amount to a modest 400 tonnes. However, current interest is centered on the use of intensive systems for the production of cod juveniles. These intensive systems are seen as a prerequisite for the predictability required by the large players in the industry such as Nutreco.

Nutreco's priorities explained Mr. Hole are "First and foremost, to get the cod breeding plant, which is under construction at Kollsnes, in Norway up and running. Even though we are allied with good partners we must nevertheless prove that technology works."

Nutreco was one of the companies that tried its hand at cod juvenile production during the 80's and 90's, and in the period 89-94 the company invested some 35 million NOK on developing technology for juvenile production.

"The reason why we have waited so long to start using this technology is because it is only now that we feel the time is right to go in for cod farming," Hole said.

Nutreco's principle is that they will also farm a certain amount of cod in Norway.

"Cod will supplement salmon, which together will amount to the most important marine species in Nutreco. We don't want to try too many species. We are targeting the European market in particular with the cod," said Hole.

Nutreco doesn't have any cod production licenses at present. They are waiting for the results from juvenile production before applying for licenses.

"With one million fry you get around 3-4,000 tonnes of cod. That's not much, and therefore we feel that we have plenty of time to apply for fish farm licenses. After all, we are optimists and will succeed," Hole said.

In the next three years Nutreco, through its share majority in the company Cod Culture Norway, plans to produce 10 million juveniles, and in the long term production can be 25-30 million juveniles at the facility at Kollsnes.

"10 million juveniles provide a production of 30-40,000 tonnes of cod. The conditions to achieve this production are naturally that everything proceeds according to plan and that market development is satisfactory," maintained Hole.

There are juvenile producers in Norway today. Hole doesn't think numbers will increase to any great extent.

"In Southern Europe there are a few large hatcheries specialising in other marine species. I think this will be the case for cod juvenile producers in Norway also. It depends on how large the hatcheries are and also how many smolt facilities are established," said Hole.

For the grow out period, cod respond well to production in standard floating pens, although the use of artificial light is reported as being necessary to achieve continuous production and control maturation. Two of the greatest challenges facing this new industry are the development of disease control measures and the introduction of more effective breeding systems. This is essential to ensure a steady supply of healthy and viable juveniles for the future.

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