SEPA to decide on salmon feed cap by April
A decision on whether to impose a feed cap on Scotland’s salmon farmers will be made within the next two or three months, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) has said.
It follows an extended public consultation on the proposal, which attracted 29 written responses and involved information events with feed manufacturers/suppliers, fish producers, coastal community groups and environmental NGOs.
SEPA proposed the cap last year as an alternative way of regulating the amount of fish faeces that enters the sea from salmon farms. The agency currently does this by limiting the amount of fish (biomass) a farm can hold.
Welfare concerns
The proposal has been described as “lazy regulation” by the Scottish Salmon Producers’ Organisation (SSPO), which said a feed cap would raise significant health and welfare concerns and undermine Scottish salmon’s global reputation for quality.
When SEPA announced an eight-week consultation about the proposal in early October last year, SSPO chief executive Julie Hesketh-Laird said the decision to consider a feed cap “has no environmental basis, is wrong, misguided and could threaten fish health and welfare”.
She added that farmers must be able to judge the appropriate amount of feed necessary to rear their stock and keep them healthy.
Analysing responses
The consultation was due to be finished by December but was later extended by seven weeks until January 17.
A spokesperson for SEPA told Fish Farming Expert: “SEPA’s recent technical consultation on the use of biomass or feed to regulate the organic output from marine pen fish farming to the environment has now closed.
“We are committed to listening and to getting this right, and during the consultation period held information events with feed manufacturers/suppliers, fish producers, coastal community groups and environmental NGOs. A total of 29 written responses were received.
“Work to analyse all of the responses is now under way. We expect to reach a decision in two to three months, once we have fully considered the information provided. This will be shared on the We Asked, You Said, We Did section of SEPA’s consultation hub.”
SEPA’s consultation document, which explains its rationale for considering a change to the way it controls the environmental load from fish farms, can be found here.
