Shri Nilkant Ramnath Halarnkar, Hon’ble Minister of Fisheries, Government of Goa visited Norway on Feb 28 – March 2, 2024. During the visit he addressed the Agdar India Business Seminar at Kristiansand in Southern Norway and presented Government of Goa’s policy in fisheries sector and for the welfare of fishermen.
He engaged Norwegian enterprises which work in the field of aquaculture, especially Salmon farming, to explore the possibility of developing cage farming in Goa.
Site visit was also organised by the Business Region Kristiansand (the Commerce Department of the City Govenment) for the delegation to Global Ocean Technology (GOT), Mandal shipyard which specializes in manufacture of fishing vessels. They also went on board one of the latest and large fishing vessels (Sille Marie) of 67 meters which has on board fish processing unit.
Thereafter, he visited Institute of Marine Research (IMR) at Arendal. He was given an overview of the research activities undertaken by IMR, including assessment of fish stock as well as basic research of marine ecosystem, aquaculture, fisheries, nutritions, food safety and animal welfare. The Hon’ble Minister and his team later went on board IMR’s research vessel GM Dannevig Arendal.
A brief site visit was also organised to a blue mussels farming at Larvik done by Norwegian Mussel Company AS. They have been offshore mussel farms using New Zealand technique and smart farm technology. They are also in the process of setting up similar farms in Goa in the coming months.
Visit of the Hon’ble Minister was preceded by visit of Dr. Shamila Monteiro, Director, Directorate of Fisheries from the state of Goa , India along with a team of entrepreneurs / fishing vessels owners from Goa to Bergen and Alesund. In Bergen, they visited NCE Seafood Cluster, to understand the operation of the cluster and its activities for sustainable aquaculture and fisheries. Visit to NOFIMA was to engage Norwegian researchers working on innovative but natural feed for fishes as well as to utilize various byproducts of fish processing in a sustainable manner.
They visited Grieg Seafood AS, which is one of the largest salmon farming and processing companies. Views were exchanged on various aspects of salmon breeding and efforts made by Norwegian enterprises to reduce damage to the natural ecosystem.
The delegation visited Hatch Blue AS in Bergen, which specializes in providing consultancy services for aquaculture and seafood and provides pre-seed funding and incubation programs. They also had elaborated on two enterprises they were funding in India, who use low energy green processing technology to shape seaweeds into carbon efficient solutions.
Delegation also visited control center of Blomfisheries in Rong near Bergen, which monitors remotely all their off shore salmon farms spread over several places in Norway. A visit to offshore fish cages of Engesund Fiskeoppdrett AS was organised to experience the operation of open sea cages.
In Alesund, delegation interacted with ship brokers and one of the largest ship design company VARD AS, they also visited yet another large fishing vessels which had on-baord fish processing unit including individual quick frozen (IQF) as well as contact freezer.
They also visited the salmon and trout processing company, HOFSETH AS, and took a tour of their processing unit. They also visited one of the professional fishing equipment stores Fiskevegen, where they learnt about the automatic jiggers and modern fishing equipment.
