Is it OK to eat farmed salmon now?

After years of bad press, salmon farms are signing up to new certification standards in a bid to prove their environmental and social credentials

Standing on the edge of a circular cage anchored to the seabed a few hundred metres offshore, salmon farmer Jan Birre is feeling proud. His industry has been criticised over the past two decades with reports emerging of seal deaths, pollution and escaping fish.But his farm, close to the Norwegian island of Skjerviy, has become one of the first to achieve an ethical accreditation designed to limit such problems.

With 14 cages and more than 2 million salmon, Birre's farm is one of the most modern sites in Norway, with submerged cameras in each cage monitored by staff on a support boat checking that the feed - dispensed via long pipes - is being evenly distributed to the fish.