Key farmed salmon producers join forces to create global industry body to address challenges - Group representing 70% of the global farmed salmon industry launch Global Salmon Initiative (GSI) in Trondheim, Norway, today
- GSI will address challenges around increased demand while also focusing on sustainable, environmentally friendly farming, biosecurity, feed sourcing and industry standards
- Norway, Canada, Chile and Scotland are the biggest farmed salmon producers CEOs of the global farmed salmon industry will today launch a major industry-led sustainability initiative, The Global Salmon Initiative (GSI), which will unite 15 global key farmed salmon producers. The GSI companies are committed to greater industry co-operation and transparency, in order to achieve significant and continuous progress in sustainability within the farmed salmon industry.
About 60% of the world’s salmon production currently comes from farms and the industry currently faces twin challenges: firstly, the need for expansion and growth in line with the growing demand for protein from a rapidly expanding global population and secondly the challenge of concerns from environmentalists about the impact of salmon farms and local concerns about the impact on wild fish numbers.
With a shared ambition of improving industry performance across three pillars of sustainability - reducing environmental impact, increasing social contribution and maintaining economic growth - the GSI member company CEOs today announced that they are focusing on areas where they can make ambitious, yet achievable improvements, within a realistic timeframe.
Keen to make substantial improvements, the GSI have decided to concentrate their efforts on three priority areas facing the industry: biosecurity, feed sourcing and meeting industry standards.
The world’s main salmon producing nations are Norway, Canada, Chile and Scotland.
In 2011 (the last year for which figures are available) 1,600,000 tonnes of salmon came from farms, while 930,000 tonnes of wild salmon were caught. The largest markets for salmon are the EU, USA, and Japan. The GSI have committed to working closely with industry partners to ensure they are making significant change in areas affecting the whole of the industry, and are not merely satisfying the status quo. Keen on improving sustainability across the aquaculture industry, the GSI have been working closely with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations across a number of projects. Both parties share a goal of supporting the expansion of sustainable aquaculture as a source of high quality food protein for a growing global population.
ABOUT THE GSI:
The Global Salmon Initiative (GSI) is a leadership initiative established by global farmed salmon producers focused on making significant progress on industry sustainability. The GSI are committed to fully realizing a shared goal of providing a highly sustainable source of healthy food to feed a growing global population, whilst minimizing our environmental footprint, and continuing to improve our social contribution. The 15 GSI member companies are:
- Acuinova Chile - Bakkafrost - Blumar - Cermaq - Compañía Pesquera Camanchaca - Empresas AquaChile - Grieg Seafoods - Lerøy Seafood Group - Los Fiordos - Marine Harvest - Norway Royal Salmon - SalMar - Multiexport Foods SA - The Scottish Salmon Company - Scottish Sea Farms
WEBLINKS:
www.globalsalmoninitiative.org