The Greens want to move salmon farms from water to land. The Tasmanian industry says it can't be done

Australia Broadcast Center

01-05-2025

Tasmania's salmon industry — a $1.3 billion operation concentrated mostly in the state's south — has become a contentious political topic this federal election campaign.
It produced almost 75,000 tonnes of Atlantic salmon in the 2022-23 financial year, and those in support of the industry argue it's an important economic contributor to the state, while providing employment to regional communities.
Photo shows
Salmon farm location map 4
Those black, circular things floating in the water off the Tasmanian coastline? They are salmon farms. Here is how many there are — and who owns them.
The industry, made up of three foreign-owned companies — Tassal, Huon and Petuna — has recently found itself at the centre of several environmental incidents, and has played a key role in a last-minute
In February,
Rotting fish and
Not long after, video released of live salmon being placed into bins with dead fish resulted in
Tasmania's salmon industry operates mostly in the state's south in channels and bays.
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ABC News: Luke Bowden
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The industry has been criticised by conservation and environmental groups for years over its impact on the
To mitigate the impacts to marine areas, environmental groups such as Neighbours of Fish Farming (NOFF) have argued that commercially-farmed salmon could be moved to land-based operations.
They say land-based farming also minimises the spread of disease, reducing the need for antibiotics, and removes noise and light pollution for coastal communities.
In Iceland, grow-out tanks by land-based salmon company Laxey — each measuring 28m in diameter and 13m in height — can hold up to 5,000 cubic metres of seawater.
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Laxey
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It's a strategy the salmon industry strongly opposes, arguing the move to 100 per cent land-based farming would be economically, logistically and politically unrealistic.
The push to land-based salmon farming
In Tasmania, commercially grown salmon starts in freshwater land-based hatcheries, before being moved to saltwater open-pen farms on maturity.
Land-based farming uses Recirculating Aquaculture Systems (RAS), a controlled environment that reuses water and limits the movement of fish.
On Wednesday, Tasmanian Greens Senator Nick McKim announced a new policy to force salmon farms out of the state's coastal waters and in to land-based farms.
In his announcement, Senator McKim said "for too long, the salmon corporations have treated Tasmania's oceans like a dumping ground".
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ABC News: Jake Grant
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The Greens' proposal includes $50 million of Commonwealth funding for environmental remediation, independent monitoring of salmon farms for compliance with animal cruelty and environmental standards, and a "jobs transition package" for Macquarie Harbour workers.
Under the policy, the salmon industry would self-fund its transition to land-based farming.
"This is about transitioning the industry onshore, getting the industry out of Macquarie Harbour, to give the Maugean skate a fighting chance of survival,"
Mr McKim said.
The Greens have not put a timeline on the completion of the transition.
In April, Laxey completed its first salmon transfer to land-based grow-out tanks in Iceland.
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Laxey
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Photo shows
Large ship next to a fish farm pen in the ocean.
Foreign companies now own Tasmania's big three salmon farming operations. Here's a look at how industrial fish farms are run overseas — and the problems operators have encountered when there's opposition to their practices.
Tasmania's salmon industry is regulated by the state government.
Mr McKim said there were "plenty of levers that can be pulled" at a state level to instigate the transition.
"There's no doubt that the powers exist to transition the industry on shore and to force it to transition on shore," he said.
The Tasmanian government has not supported the Greens' policy.
"They clearly have a focus on shutting down Tasmanian industry. They are anti-everything,"
Minister Felix Ellis said.
Independent federal candidate for Franklin and Climate-200-backed anti-salmon campaigner, Peter George, has also flagged land-based aquaculture as an environmentally positive alternative.
Mr George took leave from his role as NOFF's president to challenge federal Fisheries Minister Julie Collins in the federal election.
In his campaign material, Peter George says "Labor and Liberal … are putting corporate interests and overseas profit before the people of Franklin".
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ABC News: Ebony ten Broeke
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Why the Tasmanian industry says it can't work
Luke Martin, outgoing chief executive of the industry's peak body Salmon Tasmania, dismissed the case for 100-per-cent land-based farming as "voodoo economics".
"It will never get to a point where you do the entire production period, the entire two-year life cycle of the fish, on land," Mr Martin said.
Mr Martin says he doesn't think land-based salmon farming would be economically viable.
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ABC News: Luke Bowden
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He said large amounts of water, energy and land would be required to transition the industry, requirements he deemed unfeasible.
Mr Martin also argued that the cost of moving the industry to land-based farms was significant and would drive up the price of the product, making it economically unviable.
"We're talking about giant artificial ponds, enormous tanks built into the Tasmanian landscape — which community would be lining up to put their hand up in Tasmania?" he said.
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It is just not economically possible. I don't believe it's environmentally feasible and certainly the engineering considerations are very complex as well.
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Thousands turned out to Hobart's parliament lawns to protest the environmental damage caused by marine fish farms.
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ABC News: Jake Grant
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However, he said the industry was investigating how it could expand the amount of time fish spend on land before being transferred to marine pens — with an eye to expanding operations.
"The future of the industry lies with a combination of partial on-land farming for the small fish, where the smolt [young fish] would spend around 12 months of their life,"
he said.
"And then secure leases in deeper water, into more open water areas like outer Storm Bay, potentially off the coast."
Mr Martin said if land-based farming did become feasible, he believed the industry would move closer to bigger mainland markets to minimise costs.
Has it worked elsewhere?
Other commercially grown finfish, such as barramundi, are farmed at land-based facilities in Queensland and the Northern Territory at far smaller volumes than Atlantic salmon.
Photo shows
Large ship next to a fish farm pen in the ocean.
Foreign companies now own Tasmania's big three salmon farming operations. Here's a look at how industrial fish farms are run overseas — and the problems operators have encountered when there's opposition to their practices.
However, land-based commercial Atlantic salmon farms do exist, and have been implemented at small scale in many countries — most notably in the US, Canada, Japan and Europe.
The scale of production at these land-based locations is far smaller than their ocean counterparts.
The largest example of land-based RAS aquaculture is Florida-based company, Atlantic Sapphire, which raises salmon in a "bluehouse", a climate-controlled indoor facility that minimises the risk of disease and environmental contamination.
But profitability remains a challenge.
In 2023, the company harvested just over 1,500 tonnes, a decrease of about 700 tonnes from the previous year.
Atlantic Sapphire is the largest global onshore aquaculture company in the world.
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Supplied: Atlantic Sapphire
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Canada is the world's fourth-largest producer of Atlantic salmon, with the majority of its industry farming in west coast waters off Vancouver Island in British Columbia.
It is attempting to transition part of its billion-dollar industry to land-based practices.
In June last year, the Canadian government promised to ban marine salmon farming in British Columbia by 2029, citing environmental concerns and the need to protect wild salmon populations.
The plan has left the region's peak-industry body, the British Columbia Salmon Farmers Association, concerned and doubtful it can be achieved without significant job losses.
Its executive director, Brian Kingzett, told the ABC the estimated cost to transition the industry was more than 2 billion Canadian dollars.
"We had a political decision, not based in science,"
Mr Kingzett said.
"Much like Tasmania, we're largely a remote island. Our salmon farms are in rural areas, we don't have the power grid or the land to support on-land aquaculture."