Columbi Farms interviewed in a Global Seafood Alliance article
Growing lettuce by using fish sludge and water from recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) has become a hot topic in the seafood industry. This week, Columbi Farms was interviewed by the Global Seafood Alliance to talk about how we aim to produce sustainable food.
17. desember 2021
RAS offers the opportunity to produce large amounts of food with small amounts of water. This method is also used to cultivate plants underwater, with early results showing potential for growth within fish production systems. In the article, chief operating officer Siv-Lene Gangenes Skar of Columbi Farms, explain more about how the company produce food from fish sludge.
– Wastewater from an RAS facility contains valuable nutrients that plants can absorb, while environmental technologies make it possible to reuse water in a safe and efficient way. Like traditional aquaponics, we are reusing nutrients and water from one system in another, says Gangenes Skar, and continues:
– Our goal is to decouple the two production forms to optimize fish and plant production individually and still utilize the organic nutrients in wastewater.
Columbi Farms is working with the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomic Research (NIBIO), Morefish, and Biomar to grow lettuce using fish sludge and water from RAS salmon farms. Between December 2020 and September 2021, the team studied 1,000 Atlantic salmon produced in freshwater with two varieties of lettuce for 10 months. Fish welfare and plant quality were analyzed, water quality and CO2 were measured, and mass balance was calculated for salmon and lettuce to see how efficiently fish feed was being utilized.
Project manager Mari Båtnes Birkeland at Columbi Farms told Global Seafood Alliance about the results from the project.
– We had good plant and fish health and high yield. We estimate that for every kilo of feed, we can produce one kilo of salmon and 9 kilos of lettuce. Our goal is to decouple the two production forms to optimize fish and plant production individually and still utilize the organic nutrients in wastewater, says Båtnes Birkeland.
To read the full article from the Global Seafood Alliance, please use this link: