By Marco G. Pistrin, Founder and Managing Director, AquaOrganica SRL, Italy
Norway loves to go big. Really big. In fact, when it comes to aquaculture, the Nordic mantra seems to be: “If it’s not measured in tens of thousands of tonnes, why even bother?” The bigger the farm, the bigger the harvest, the bigger the profits—or so the story goes. And to be fair, in the sparsely populated fjords of Norway, this approach has worked. Licenses exist, land is available, and the neighbors are more likely to be herring gulls than human protesters.
But try parachuting this mentality into mainland Europe—or worse, North America or Canada—and watch how quickly the ‘economy of scale’ dream transforms into a regulatory and political nightmare. Spoiler: you don’t get a ribbon-cutting ceremony; you get lawyers, petitions, and green activists chaining themselves to your planning documents.
Belgium: EU€150 million sunk before breaking ground
Take Belgium. Columbi Salmon had grand plans for a EU€150 million mega-facility in Ostend, designed to churn out 15,000 tonnes of salmon annually. The project was bold, the scale impressive, and the technology state-of-the-art. Unfortunately, the only thing that actually scaled extremely well was opposition. Animal welfare group GAIA led the charge, arguing that intensive salmon farming was cruel, unsustainable, and fundamentally unwelcome. By November 2024, Belgium’s Council for Permit Disputes agreed and shredded the environmental permit. Result? Mainland Europe’s largest proposed land-based salmon farm was dead before a single tank was built.
Lesson: try to build a ‘Norwegian-sized’ project in densely populated Belgium, and the community will vehemently oppose you and simply eat you alive.
France: A trifecta of trouble
If Belgium’s story was a train wreck, France is a slow-motion pile-up. Three high-profile salmon projects—Smart Salmon in Brittany (8–10,000 tonnes), Pure Salmon in Gironde (10,000 tonnes), and Local Ocean in Pas-de-Calais (9,000 tonnes)—have been battered by local resistance, environmental lawsuits, and endless permitting delays.
Smart Salmon gave up entirely in late 2024, withdrawing its application after facing furious opposition. Pure Salmon relocated its project once already and is still stuck in bureaucratic limbo. Local Ocean hasn’t moved past the paperwork. The French public isn’t exactly lining up to welcome industrial-scale salmon next door. In a country with high population density, deeply entrenched activism, and plenty of Green Party sympathisers, these mega-facilities are about as welcome as an oil refinery on a wine estate.
The US: Land of the free, home of the NIMBY
Spread your wings and cross the Atlantic, and you’ll find that Americans are no easier to convince. Nordic Aquafarms discovered this the hard way in Maine, where a US$500 million project aiming to produce 33,000 tonnes of salmon has been trapped in a tangle of lawsuits for years. Locals, lobster fishermen, and environmental groups united to argue over wastewater discharge, energy use, and even land ownership for intake pipes. The company might have envisioned a salmon empire; the community envisioned dead bays, higher power bills, and corporate outsiders cashing in.
Meanwhile, in Washington State, the backlash didn’t just kill one farm—it killed an entire industry. After Cooke Aquaculture’s net-pen collapse in 2017 spilled 250,000 Atlantics into Puget Sound, tribes and environmental groups pushed through a statewide ban on non-native finfish farming. By 2024, Atlantic salmon net-pens were history.
If that isn’t a cautionary tale, I don’t know what is.
Canada-Eh!: Scaling red tape, not aquaculture
As a born-and-raised British Columbian, I can’t help but laugh at the idea of building aquaculture projects here. Special interest groups drown the debate in feelings, while Ottawa’s Liberals pile on regulations without offering a single solution for an already weak salmon industry. They don’t create jobs; they export our talent abroad. Canada could be perfect for smaller, high-tech land-based facilities—feasible, community-focused, and built in numbers. But with this government? Forget it. The only thing they scale is red tape.
Why small is the new big
So what’s the lesson here? Simple: massive mega-farms only work in Norway because Norway is, well, Norway. Low population, pro-aquaculture policies, a history of fish farming, and communities that see industry as opportunity rather than invasion. Outside that bubble, ‘go big or go home’ almost always translates to ‘go big and get sued.’
Instead, the smarter path forward lies in building smaller, community-centered facilities. Retrofits of existing farms. Projects sized to local demand. Production designed to supply the nearby city rather than conquer a continent. When a farm creates jobs, delivers fresh local fish, and becomes a point of regional pride, the opposition simply melts away. Look at Swisslachs in Switzerland. They calculated it well and now they are potentially looking to scale-up. Nice work!
Think about it: would a French village rather host a 35,000-tonne intergalactic salmon farm, shipping product across Europe, or a 220-tonne boutique farm that sells ‘Milano salmon’ at the weekly market? The first sparks outrage; the second earns applause.
The community card wins every time
What the mega-farm evangelists forget is that aquaculture doesn’t operate in a vacuum. It’s embedded in communities, politics, and culture. No matter how elegant your RAS technology or how detailed your spreadsheets, if the town council hates you, your farm is going nowhere, fast!
By starting small, investing steadily, and growing with the community, farms of this type can succeed where mega-projects fail. That doesn’t mean giving up on ambition—it means scaling ambition to reality. 220 tonnes today, 400 tomorrow, maybe 600 in a decade. It’s patient, sustainable, and—most importantly—more feasible.
Final thought: Scale isn’t everything
In the end, size does matter—but not in the way Norway thinks. Outside the fjords, communities care less about economies of scale and more about economies of belonging. The salmon industry’s future won’t be built on ‘intergalactic mega-farms’ that effortlessly attract the fiercest form of local opposition. It will be built on projects that fit the land, serve the people, and earn the civic endorsement that money can’t buy.
