Short abstract

Norway aims to expand salmon aquaculture but faces a “fish feed predicament”: growing production collides with sustainability concerns. Studying a national mission on sustainable feed, I show how sustainability metrics privilege certain solutions and futures while marginalizing others.

Long abstract

The world needs food, yet current production systems struggle to feed a growing population without degrading ecosystems. Aquaculture is widely framed as part of the solution: fish is promoted as a healthy, low-carbon source of protein. At the same time, fish farming is heavily scrutinized for its environmental consequences, including impacts on fish health and on surrounding marine ecosystems.

Norway is the world’s largest exporter of farmed salmon, producing roughly 1.5 million tons annually. Policy ambitions suggest that value creation from farmed salmon could quintuple by 2050, positioning Norway as an “aquaculture nation.” Yet the industry faces what SINTEF, one of Norway’s most influential research organizations, calls a “fish feed predicament.” The ambition to expand seafood production collides with growing concerns about the sustainability of feed ingredients and raw materials. The central question becomes: how should an ever-increasing number of fish be fed?

This talk examines the development of a Norwegian social mission on sustainable feed (Samfunnsoppdraget om berekraftig fôr). I focus on the work of an expert group on sustainability tasked with developing a framework for assessing the sustainability of feed raw materials. Drawing on interviews, document analysis, and meeting observations, I analyse how different concepts of sustainability become operationalized through technoscientific expectations, particular business models, and modes of quantitative assessment. Asking how certain solutions to the “fish feed predicament” are chosen at the expense of others, I show how specific visions of resilient and desirable Norwegian food and feed futures are enacted.