Iceland Shows Why B.C.’s Ocean Salmon Farming Ban Makes No Sense

Tim Kennedy’s visit to Iceland found a country building ocean and land-based salmon farming together, while Canada tries to destroy the coastal foundation needed to grow new aquaculture technology

By Fabian Dawson
SeaWestNews

Iceland is doing what Canada’s anti-salmon farming activists keep pretending can be done in British Columbia. It is building land-based salmon farming.

But it is doing so by strengthening ocean farming, not destroying it, said Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance President and CEO Tim Kennedy after his recent visit to Iceland, where he spoke at the Iceland Aquaculture and Ocean Forum 2026.

Kennedy said Iceland’s aquaculture sector is moving with ambition, confidence and a clear understanding that new farming technologies need a strong ocean-based sector to grow from.

“They are very ambitious for growth of their aquaculture production, especially in the salmon sector,” Kennedy told SeaWestNews.

Iceland is now producing about 60,000 metric tonnes of farmed salmon, largely from ocean-based operations, with plans to grow production to as much as 245,000 tonnes by 2032 through a combination of ocean-based and land-based farming.

That would put the tiny North Atlantic nation on track to produce roughly twice Canada’s current farmed salmon output within the next decade.

For Kennedy, the key point is not only Iceland’s appetite for growth. It is the way the country is approaching that growth.

“The activists in Canada and the U.S. militating for the shutdown of the ocean sector have got it very wrong,” he said. “To actually build successful land-based systems and large-scale technologies, you need to work with the foundation of ocean farming, ensure it is strong, and work with ocean farmers to help finance the development of new technologies and integrate with them.”

Kennedy said Iceland does not see land-based salmon farming as a replacement for ocean farming. It sees it as additional and complementary.

That approach stands in sharp contrast to British Columbia, where the former Trudeau government’s plan to shut down ocean salmon farms by 2029 has put thousands of coastal jobs, Indigenous partnerships, food security and domestic seafood production at risk.

The federal policy has been pushed for years by activists who claim land-based systems can simply replace ocean farms. But multiple government-backed studies, industry experts and First Nations leaders have warned that the claim does not match the science, economics or geography of B.C.

A joint federal-provincial assessment prepared for the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and Oceans Canada found that  large-scale land-based salmon farming in British Columbia is not ready to replace ocean farming. The report cited high capital costs, operating costs, energy demands, freshwater needs, land constraints and infrastructure gaps.

The report found that only a handful of land-based salmon farms globally have exceeded 2,500 tonnes of annual production, with most failing to demonstrate long-term profitability.

It also found that each large land-based facility would require roughly four to five hectares of flat land, major power infrastructure, high-quality freshwater and suitable discharge capacity.

Those conditions are scarce along B.C.’s mountainous coast, where most salmon farming now takes place in partnership with First Nations.

Kennedy said the country has a rare mix of natural and industrial advantages that make land-based farming more feasible there than in most places.

Those include abundant low-cost renewable geothermal energy, access to volcanic rock-filtered freshwater, saltwater wells, a skilled seafood workforce, stable cool temperatures, flat coastal land with limited competing uses, proximity to airports and a tight network of suppliers, researchers and seafood innovators.

“They can do this in a very financially competitive way and make use of land that is otherwise unusable or undesirable for common social use,” Kennedy said.

He said Iceland’s land-based systems are also different from the fully recirculating systems often promoted by activists in Canada.

Many of the Icelandic projects are hybrid systems that combine flow-through technology with recirculating aquaculture systems. Less water is fully recirculated, with the technology used mainly to reuse heat and maintain stability.

One Icelandic company, First Water, is using what it calls a Hybrid Flow-Through System on the country’s volcanic south coast. The system draws subterranean seawater filtered naturally through lava fields, while geothermal energy helps maintain steady water temperatures.

The company says this allows it to grow 5-kilogram-plus Atlantic salmon year-round for premium markets, while using Iceland’s renewable energy and clean water advantages.

Kennedy said the broader Icelandic model also allows land-based projects to grow in stages.

Rather than trying to build massive land-based grow-out plants all at once, producers are raising smolts and post-smolts on land, then selling many of them to ocean farms for grow-out. That generates revenue, supports fish health, strengthens ocean production and helps finance later stages of land-based expansion.

Some projects are now beginning to keep more fish on land for full grow-out. Kennedy said one project has completed a first harvest of full-grown salmon in the five to six kilogram range.

That practical, staged approach is almost the opposite of what activists have demanded in British Columbia.

In B.C., the activist vision has been to kill ocean farming first, then hope land-based systems emerge later to replace the lost production, jobs and economic activity.

Previous analyses have estimated that replacing existing marine salmon farms in B.C. with land-based recirculating systems would require between $1.8 billion and $2.2 billion in direct investment. Even then, it could take at least a decade to build a stable land-based sector.

Other studies have found that growing Atlantic salmon on land can cost up to 12 times more than ocean farming. Moving current production to land on Vancouver Island alone could increase greenhouse gas emissions by more than 22.8 million kilograms annually, roughly equivalent to powering a city the size of North Vancouver for a year.

That puts the   federal ban at odds with Ottawa’s own stated goals on climate, food security, affordability and reconciliation.

Iceland is showing how a country can grow aquaculture without turning technology into ideology, said Kennedy.

Its farmed seafood exports hit a record in January 2026, with farmed seafood, mostly salmon, worth roughly C$110 million. The value of farmed salmon exports rose about 33 per cent from the same month a year earlier.

That growth stands in sharp contrast to Canada, where aquaculture already contributes $2 billion to GDP and supports more than 18,000 jobs but has been losing ground.

In 2024, the total value of farmed seafood produced in Canada was $1.36 billion, down 21 per cent in real terms from its 2018 peak of $1.73 billion in constant 2024 dollars.

Main file image shows Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance President and CEO Tim Kennedy speaking at a Parliamentary Committee meeting in Ottawa.