Foreign-owned salmon farming multinationals have been handed almost £17million of taxpayers’ cash while raking in huge profits.
Subsidies from the Scottish and UK Governments were given to major players in the industry since 2021 despite repeated allegations of environmental failings.
It includes Norway-based Mowi – the world’s largest salmon firm – which received state cash to ramp up production of farmed Scottish salmon, the UK’s most lucrative food export.
The figures are in a report from environmental charity Feedback Global and Global Salmon Farming Resistance and come amid mounting controversy over fish farming practices.
Ailsa McLennan, an oyster farmer and campaigner from near Ullapool on the north-west coast, who lives near a Mowi facility, told the Sunday Mail: “I’m horrified this is the way that these national seafood funds are being used.
“They are meant to be for a long-term future sustainability of UK fisheries and the seafood sector.
“Instead, they’re giving that money to these huge multinationals and that money is siphoned off. It’s appalling.
“I don’t know a single shellfish farmer that isn’t independent and locally-based, and if they got this money it would stay within the community.
“I think that would be a much better use of the money than giving it to already rich companies.”
Feedback Global and GSFR’s ‘Fishy Finances’ report delves into both the public and private investment being spent on supporting the industrial farming industry.
It found, since 2021, the Scottish Government’s Marine Fund Scotland has awarded £4.8million to salmon multinationals including the Scottish Salmon Company – a subsidiary of Faroese giant Bakkafrost – Canada’s Cooke Aquaculture and Mowi.
The cash was used chiefly to increase production and processing capacity.
Between 2022 and 2023, the UK Government also handed out £12million to Norwegian firms including £7million to salmon titan Mowi via the UK Seafood Fund – FIVE times more than £1.3million the firm paid in tax to the Treasury in 2022.
Mowi’s annual revenue last year was around £4.6billion.
The report also accuses Mowi of having a “shocking” environmental record in Scotland, including using chemicals on salmon sold to UK supermarkets as organic and mass fish mortalities on their farms.
Last year, more than a million fish died at two adjacent Mowi Scotland sites – the biggest mass die-off of farmed salmon in Scotland in a decade.
Campaigners also say the industry is polluting the environment in Scotland and that sea lice infestations on farms are contributing to declines in wild Atlantic salmon populations – a claim the sector denies.
Rachel Mulrenan, Scotland director of WildFish, said: “Not only is this polluting industry using Scotland’s waters as a dumping ground for its toxic waste, threatening endangered wild Atlantic salmon and other marine life, it is also receiving millions of pounds in subsidies from the UK and Scottish Governments.
“Adding insult to injury, the report finds that in some years individual companies have received more in subsidies than they have paid in tax.
“In essence, the people of Scotland are paying to prop up an unsustainable industry that uses our waters for free waste disposal, whilst channelling its substantial profits offshore.”