Viewpoint / Not an expansion but rationalisation of salmon farming
Salmon Scotland chief executive Tavish Scott responds to this week’s Viewpoint contribution by Shetland Fishermen’s Association’s Sheila Keith
I completely understand Sheila Keith’s need to represent her members: that is her job.
However, her opinion piece in the Shetland News and commentary on BBC Radio Shetland contained several factual inaccuracies which need a response. I also have members who create jobs and spend tens of millions of pounds across Shetland.
The ‘corporate bad’ theme being adopted is, in my view, disingenuous. Shetland has had oil and gas since the 1970s and most of us lucky enough to grow up and have families over these past decades have benefited from the corporate investment that has come into Shetland.
Sullom Voe would not have happened without BP and Shell. Their investment has gone hand-in-hand with the growth of locally-owned businesses.
I sincerely hope Shetland is still open to business investment in jobs, careers and good salaries.
Both fish catching and fish farming create and maintain local jobs, secure careers and pay wages in the local economy.
I value that and I do not diminish or rundown any other sector in Shetland.
Like most local people, I am proud of the number of men and women who work in our sector (Sheila and I can at least agree that not everyone can work for the council) and the Shetland-owned and run businesses which serve both salmon farming and fish catching.
Malakoff, Ocean Kinetics, and Henderson’s, to name but three, need all of Shetland’s seafood sector to thrive. More than 400 people work directly for salmon companies in Shetland, with the wages bill for Scottish Sea Farms in Shetland as high as £15 million each year.
The average salary for people who work on salmon farms is approximately £44,000, considerably above the Scottish average.
Given the cost of living in Shetland, these figures are vitally important. A further 1,200 people are involved in more than 100 supply chain Shetland businesses, small and large. Salmon’s gross value added (GVA), which is a measure of goods produced, is £137 million for Shetland. That is money circulating in the islands’ economy.
On radio, Sheila said “the use of chemicals from salmon farming, which are meant to be banned but are continuing to be used.”
That is categorically not true. Veterinarians prescribe medicines to fish just as they do to sheep or cattle, and no medicines are used without vet authorisation.
There are no discharges into the sea by a fish farm unless that is authorised by the regulator: to do otherwise is to break the law.
A fish farm application must pass numerous regulatory hurdles including the Scottish Government, SEPA, and NatureScot.
The consenting system is complex, takes on average three to four years, and includes a vast amount of data and evidence – all of which is rightly open to the public to scrutinise.
Then, and only then, is the local authority asked to decide on an application. To suggest, as Sheila does, that the system is failing is simply wrong.
People may oppose a decision, as with the millions of planning decisions across Scotland, but the system is as robust as anywhere in the world. And if people don’t like a local decision, the way to change the decision-makers is at the ballot box.
But to cast aspirations on the council for making a decision in line with planning law and regulation, as Sheila does, is unfair. The alternative is that central government in Edinburgh should make such decisions. Where does that end?
Scottish Sea Farms has given up 23 sea farm sites in the last four years around Shetland, and a further five sites will be given up this year. In passing that is the equivalent of 553 Seafield football pitches at sea.
Those sites are now available to other marine users, including of course Sheila’s members. Far from an expansion of salmon farming this is a rationalisation.
On the sea site that has caused Sheila’s ire it is important to note, and this is all part of the published documents, that the area had six farming cycles over two years with the regulatory consents to do that. Business changes. Many of us can remember the early days of salmon farming, highlighted at Gibbie Johnson’s funeral last year. Back in the day there were 50 and more local firms.
But consolidation happened; and had it not, there would be little salmon farming in Shetland today.
The reality is that Shetland men and women who owned those 50 companies back in the 1980s and 90s chose to sell for many different reasons. It is their right to make a decision that was best for them and their families.
There will always be tension and competition for sea space. But let us have that discussion based on facts and evidence.
It does no good to malign a sector, never mind the men and women who work in salmon farming, simply because they followed due process and were granted the ability to develop their business.
The Shetland I know and care about is better than that.
Fish Holm approval raises serious questions for Shetland’s fishermen
