Blue Empire: How the Norwegian salmon industry extracts nutrition and undermines livelihoods in West Africa

However, local fishers, fish traders and artisanal fish processors complain about the lack of fish and the increase in prices since the arrival of the factory. [...] Norway’s third- biggest producer of farmed salmon in 2021, Lerøy, outsources production of some of its farmed salmon products to the Netherlands – where smoked salmon and pre-packed fish are “flying off the shelves to grocery stores all over the world” including the United States – and Spain, where the company’s factories make gyoza and sushi for the local market93. [...] The recent publication of more precise data on fish oil yields from different species119 and the volume of fish oil used in Norwegian salmon farming has allowed us to build on our analysis of micronutrient loss in the Scottish farmed salmon industry to calculate micronutrient retention in the Norwegian salmon farming industry, enabling us to ascertain whether Norwegian farmed salmon is an effectiv. [...] This would have the benefit of avoiding the capture of around half of wild-caught fish currently used in Norwegian farmed salmon feedf – potentially increasing the local availability of wild fish in places like West Africa, while helping to maintain the health of fish populations. [...] TWO MILLION TONNES OF FISH FOR THE FISH OIL IN NORWEGIAN SALMON FEED Of the 1,948,220 million tonnes of fish needed to produce the fish oil supplied to the Norwegian salmon industry in 2020, 1,470,000 million tonnes (three- quarters of total) are made up of food or prime food grade fish.