Earth911 Podcast: Simen Saetre on Making Salmon a New, Domesticated Fish

Farmed salmon has been touted as a solution to food scarcity as the world turns to eating more seafood. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that seafood production must increase 29.3% by 2030 to meet demand. Our guest today is Simen Sætre, who coauthored The New Fish: The Truth about Farmed Salmon and the Consequences We Can No Longer Ignore with journalist Kjetil Ostli. The book examines the salmon farming industry in Norway in the 1960s. It is a history of the business and a chronicle of the many unanticipated consequences of fish farming, including the use of chemicals in fish feed that harm aquatic and human health, a pandemic of sea lice infections in farmed and wild fish, and the competition between salmon farms and human food supplies, particularly in Africa.

The intense pollution and inhumanity associated with large-scale cattle, pork, and poultry operations, known as CAFOs, are being translated to increase the production in salmon farming. Simen discusses how humans have started down the path to creating CAFOs in the sea. Still, he remains hopeful that wild salmon can be restored. You can find The New Fish: The Truth about Farmed Salmon and the Consequences We Can No Longer Ignore at Amazon, Powell’s Books, and local booksellers.