Ouellette: Norway not more advanced
Canada: New Brunswick provincial minister for agriculture and aquaculture, Ronald Ouellette, visited Norway in September, attending the AquaVision 2008 conference and touring aquaculture facilities. He expected to find that the Norwegian industry would be far more advanced than New Brunswick', but found that not to be true.
During a tour of local New Brunswick aquaculture industry last week, Mr. Ouellette told the Saint John based Telegraph-Journal that "when he went to Norway he thought he would see an aquaculture industry that was far more advanced than New Brunswick's but that was not the case". "We are just as advanced as anyone else in the world," Ouellette told the newspaper.
The minister did recognize that Norway has made further progress in technology for new species in addition to Atlantic salmon. He especially pointed out feed technology for growing cod using pellet feed from the beginning, eliminating the need for much more expensive live feed.
Ouellette said Norwegian industry representatives were surprised to hear that New Brunswick successfully has dealt with the ISA problem by implementing the "three-bay management system". According to Ouellette, Norway is still struggling with this disease.
