Finland reaches 20-year high in aquaculture output

Finland scored its highest aquaculture production volume in more than 20 years in 2022.

Fish farmers in the Scandinavian country produced approximately 16.3 million kilos of food fish for sale in 2022, according to the Natural Resources Institute Finland. That’s up by more than 2 million kilograms from 2021 and represents the largest volume since the 1990s. 

The value of Finnish aquaculture production also rose in 2002 to EUR 102 million (USD 113.1 million), up by EUR 23 million (USD 25.5 million) from 2021.

Despite the improvement in volume and value, the number of fish-farming operations in Finland decreased in 2022. According to Natural Resources Institute Finland, there were 219 aquaculture enterprises in operation in Finland last year, continuing a decline from the high point of nearly 400 operations in 2006. Of the extant operations in 2022, 75 percent were in inland waters and 25 percent were in sea areas.

Finland produced 15.3 million kilos of farmed rainbow trout in 2022, in addition to 800,000 kilos of European whitefish and 200,000 kilograms of other species. Of the total, 7 million kilograms, or 43 percent of Finland’s total production, originated from the Åland Islands off Finland’s west coast in the Baltic Sea.

“Production in the Åland Islands increased by slightly more than a million kilos from the previous year. This means that it returned to the level preceding the hemorrhagic septicemia infections of 2021,” Natural Resources Institute Finland Senior Statistician Pirkko Söderkultalahti said in a press release. “In mainland Finland, some 6 million kilos of food fish were produced in sea water and slightly more than 3 million kilos in fresh water. Production concentrated on the Archipelago Sea and the Satakunta region in coastal areas, and in Savonia, Kainuu, and Lapland in mainland Finland.”

Recirculating aquaculture systems produced 1.3 million kilograms of food fish, according to Söderkultalahti. 

Finnish fish farmers produced 18 million European whitefish fry, 5.3 million pikeperch fry, 2 million salmon fry, and almost 2 million trout fry in 2022. Its trout fry production was down by nearly 2 million in 2022 due to a moratorium on exports to Russia following the cessation of trading between the two countries following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Overall, fry production in Finland is down over the past 20 years due to a decrease in fish stocking, changes in aquaculture rules, a decrease in the number of fry producers, and the strengthening of natural fish populations of certain species, Söderkultalahti said.

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