It's not feasible to take salmon farming out of sheltered sea lochs into open water. They are situated there for that very reason, that they are sheltered from the worst of the swells and tides, and therefore manageable.

I think we all agree that the best way forward would be land based farming.

That would save a lot of the current hassles and take aquaculture on the west coast and islands out of the equation.

But how can this possibly be done?

How many cage sites do we have? How and where could we find the actual sites themselves that could facilitate 20 or 30 50m wide x 50ft deep holes in the ground to replace each site that exists just now?

That's an awful lot of sites with huge construction and logistic headaches.

Would these need to be close to the shore to facilitate pumping in fresh sea water? Surely a complete recirculation system would be too expensive to run further inland?

Did Marine Harvest (think was called Golden Marine at the time) not do this very thing in the seventies on the banks of a sea loch in Argyl? (Loch Striven)
Was a recirculation system serving huge circular grp tanks.
Was used for full production, not just smolt production.
regards
bert

Why would they need seawater??? From my limited understanding, freshwater would do the job? trouble is, would need major amounts, where? pollution would be a real issue???
peter

Salmon on-grow in salt water.

Freshwater is in utter abundance in Scotland.

Pollution would be eliminated altogether, with the waste collectable on land and used for other purposes

I don't think they did.

If they had developed the technology back then to grow on fish on land, they wouldn't be spending £millions on work boats today and copping the flak that they do.

They are now trialling this in Canada though.

Oh yes they did.
was developed 1969 through to at least 1976 and was used to establish the company in the UK as a producer of farmed salmon.
Reason (I think) it was curtailed was the advent of sea cages in west coast sea lochs as a cheaper option.
I worked in the area at the time, and passed the site on a daily basis.
Was the only on land salmon farm in europe at the time.
regards
bert

Gosh, are you really that old Bert?

OLDER!
Regards
Bert