The total volume of Atlantic salmon produced by Scottish fish farmers decreased by 5.8 percent, or 11,752 metric tons (MT), to 192,129 MT in 2020, finds new figures published by the Scottish government.
While lower than last year, the 2020 salmon harvest was the second-largest that Scotland has recorded.
According to the Scottish Fish Farm Production Survey 2020, compiled by Marine Scotland Science, the country did see its rainbow trout harvest rise by 2 percent to 7,576 MT, while its brown trout/sea trout production decreased by 1 MT to just 24 MT.
Eleven companies were authorized to produce Atlantic salmon in Scotland 2020, using a total 232 registered active sites. However, three of these companies did not produce salmon last year.
The majority of the fish were produced in seawater cages last year, with just 18 MT of production coming from seawater tank sites.
Overall, production was dominated by six companies, which between them accounted for 99 percent of Scotland’s farmed Atlantic salmon production.
The projected estimate for 2021 is that Scottish salmon production will increase to 236,000 MT.
In 2020, freshwater salmon production was undertaken by 24 businesses at 78 sites, with the number of active sites increasing by three compared with 2019.
The total number of smolts put to sea in 2020 was 52.4 million. The number of ova laid down to hatch was up by 10.3 percent to 78.6 million with the 87.4 percent derived from foreign sources.
There were five incidents involving the loss of 204,901 fish from seawater Atlantic salmon sites in 2020. There were 13 additional incidents reported where the companies confirmed there was no loss of fish.
Scotland’s aquaculture industry continued to farm other fish species last year. Lumpsucker and various species of wrasse were cultured for use as biological controls for parasites in the marine salmon industry. In total, almost 15.1 million cleaner fish were produced.
While halibut was also farmed during 2020, Marine Scotland said disclosing the amount would reveal the production of an individual business.
The number of people employed in marine salmon production decreased by 21 to 1,630, while staffing numbers of those employed in the production of other marine species decreased by 18, to 35 persons.
Photo courtesy of Nicola Pulham/Shutterstock
