Doubts cast over Scottish production figures
According to the results of Marine Scotland Science’s latest Scottish Fish Farm Production Survey, 179,022 tonnes of farmed Atlantic salmon were produced in 2014 – up from 163,234 tonnes in 2013.
However, a senior executive of a leading salmon producer told Fish Farming Expert that he believes this figure to be highly misleading, possibly due to inconsistencies in the methods used to calculate the weights.
“Recent reports claiming an increase in Scottish production are not accurate as they compared ‘live weight’ for 2014 with HOG from previous years,” he pointed out.
The authors of the Marine Scotland report, however, believe that their methodology has been consistent, and therefore the increase is real.
“Our calculation in the survey is wet weight of fish at harvest. This is the whole weight of fish before gutting or processing. Wet weight at harvest is what has always been used in our production survey to calculate our production figure and we have never used HOG. This has not changed from previous years so the increase is correct. Industry tend to use gutted weights but we have always used whole fish weights in the production survey,” Marine Scotland Science’s Lorna Munro told Fish Farming Expert.
Despite this assertion Scotland's salmon producers remain unconvinced.
“Regardless of version of numbers used we don’t recognise the significant increase in tonnage claimed by MSS,” the executive explained.
The Scottish Salmon Producers’ Organisation (SSPO) is currently trying to resolve the dispute.
