The Norwegians started the practice, when they saw the writing on the walls in the 1970s for wild salmon.
The farms are floating pens made of net in sheltered, saltwater sites.
The fish are fed several times a day by feed pellets sprinkled on top of the water. Farmed Salmon have pale flesh because they lack the diet that they would have in the wild. Food dyes such as canthaxanthin and/or astaxanthin are added to the feed they are given to give their flesh the colour that consumers expect.
At first, each batch of fish was ready to harvest in 3 to 4 years, but with feeding advances it can now take just over a year to a year and a half to get them ready for market. Some say that farmed salmon are too fatty, beyond what a salmon should have for good taste. Other chefs disagree, and prefer them, because they don’t dry out as quickly, and remain juicy longer during cooking.
Fish farming with Pacific salmon started to take off in the 1980s in British Columbia.
Though some people believe farmed salmon causes environmental changes, any kind of farming, whether cabbages or goats, can also be said to introduce environmental change. Meanwhile, consumers have welcomed farmed salmon into their homes. Farming salmon has caused the price of salmon to become accessible even to people with modest food budgets.