Ep. 457: Can fish be farmed on land?
Guest: Tony Pantages, CEO of Octaform
In February 2023, federal Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray announced that licenses for 15 open-net Atlantic salmon farms around British Columbia's Discovery Island will not be renewed – a planned cancellation that has now been delayed in large part due to concerns raised by indigenous leaders, who point to problems associated with moving fish farms on shore.
Norway has generated a depth of knowledge and experience in the field of land-based salmon farming in state-of-the-art recirculating aquaculture systems and is leading the way, including identifying challenges. According to Norwegian SciTech News, “ land-based fish farming is not free of challenges. The sector suffers from mass mortalities and fish meat tainted with an earthy flavour because the biological conditions in land-based facilities are difficult to control and very young fish are sensitive to poor water quality. In the worst cases, many thousands of smolt can die relatively suddenly, which can lead to major losses.”
BC-based Octaform has developed a land-based construction system that is addressing the issues associated with land-based fish farms in Norway and around the world, and is poised to offer the same technology and construction methods to the sector in BC. Tony Pantages, the CEO of Octaform, says, “We have a technology that addresses the issues related to land-based fish farming.”
We invited Tony Pantages to join us for a Conversation That Matters about protecting wild salmon through the use of new tank materials and construction materials and processes.
