Farmed Salmon Industry Makes Improvements, but Environmental Concerns Remain

Salmon is the third most popular seafood item in the United States — after shrimp and canned tuna — and the development of cost-effective fish farming techniques has led to greatly increased production and consumption, particularly of the most common farmed species, Atlantic salmon. Currently, most farmed salmon are raised in coastal open net pens where they’re in direct contact with the surrounding marine environment, and while some aspects of fish farming have improved, environmental concerns remain.

We previously assessed the global production of farmed Atlantic salmon in a single report, but due to the complexity of the industry, are now assessing farmed salmon by region. The first four regional farmed Atlantic salmon assessments were released this week for the four largest producers: Norway, Chile, Scotland and British Columbia, Canada. Assessing by region allows us to identify environmental impacts and concerns specific to each area. Although aspects of salmon farming have improved — including data availability and feed use — environmental concerns such as chemical use, the transfer of parasites and diseases to wild fish, region-specific concerns regarding escapes still exist. Overall, the four regional assessments have yielded “Avoid” recommendations.

Seafood Watch recognizes that within any one region there may be better performing farms, and encourages farms to work toward eco-certification. We will continue to work with aquaculture certification programs to develop ways to recognize the better farms in each region, and also to improve their standards allowing for a global equivalence to our yellow “Good Alternative” recommendation.

Read the farmed salmon factsheet

View Seafood Watch recommendations for wild and farmed salmon

Photo credit: Peter Bridson