Arne O. Holm says Blood Is Dripping From the Fisheries, but They Refuse to Give Up
Fish monger Rita Karlsen from Husøy in Senja municipality is wondering who will be left when the dust settles. (Photo from the Cod Conference 2025: Hilde Bye)
Comment: First, a spoiler: If you're not worried enough already, you will be after this. But read the entire comment as it ends on a hopeful note. But first, some bloody seriousness.
This is a comment written by a member of the editorial staff. The comment expresses the writer's opinions.
The blood isn't dripping from my pen. I have visited one of Norway's most important fisheries municipalities, Øksnes, at the Cod Conference 2025. And if you're thinking that fish and fisheries do not matter in the big picture and are, therefore, something you can't be bothered to read about, you're wrong.
The skrei
Fish, particularly skrei (premium seasonal cod), which is currently coming southward from Senja to Vesterålen and further on to Lofoten, equals export income, food, and national economy.
Fish is preparedness and ensures that people live along the entire coast.
Fish is geopolitics and great politics. Right now, about 40 Russian trawlers are fishing off Senja. The fisheries negotiations between Norway and Russia are one of the few open channels between our two countries.
Fish is jobs and tax revenue, and a field in which Norway is an international great power and a leader in technological development.
Threatens entire communities.
So now you know.
Yet, fisheries is also an industry under tremendous pressure. This year's lower quota, likely continuing next year, is increasing prices. That is good for the fishing vessels but threatens both the economy and the access to raw materials for the land industry.
It threatens entire communities.
Dwindling optimism
Or, as fishmonger Rita Karlsen from Br. Karlsen in Senja municipality said during the conference: There is not enough fish for everyone. It will be bloody. The question is, who will still be standing when the dust has settled?
Karlsen received support from many, including those who fish at sea, such as the shipowner Rolf Guttorm Kristoffersen: Although higher prices have compensated for lower quotas for us, I am worried for the industry. There is fierce competition for the raw materials.
NOK 150 million has been invested in a new production facility for cod liver oil at Orkla Health Ocean at Myre in Øksnes municipality in Vesterålen. (Photo: Arne O. Holm)
The Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO) isn't exactly flying the flag high, either. Hans Kristian Hansen, director of NHO Nordland, said optimism in the North's business sector has dwindled in the past month.
Donald Trump spreads fear, and not only among state employees in the US.
The message of communities under pressure was hammered home again and again.
"A toxic cocktail," said Per Martin Olsen, bank manager responsible for the Maritime Industry at the Bank of Northern Norway, describing the world situation.
Northerners on the move
He presented new statistics showing that every third northerner considers relocating. Most of them southward.
Fewer and fewer northern Norwegian owners in the fisheries industry.
"There is also an increasingly smaller proportion of northern Norwegian owners in the industry," he added.
In the same fishing villages, plainclothes police are roaming around looking for companies that solve the accelerating crisis by cheating on weights and sales slips. It threatens the reputation of those who trade in whitefish. Or, as Rita Karlsen somewhat cryptically said from the podium:
"Let a kilo be a kilo."
I could go on, but I will settle for a kind of summary: There have been some downs, but there have also been some uphills.
A packed Øksnes Hall refused to give up anyway. They applauded, toasted, and cheered for the future of an industry that is the very foundation of the construction of the Norwegian nation-state.
A packed hall during the Cod Conference 2025 at Myre, Northern Norway. (Photo: Arne O. Holm)
I walked down to Orkla Health Ocean, a producer of cod liver oil in Myre. The company has invested almost NOK 150 million in a new production line.
Close by, we find the "ubiquitous" chair and director, Eirik Sørdahl, about to turn a deficit into profit at the fish processing company Primex. He is joined by the tech founders and brains behind Kahoot, Martin and Brynjar Kværnstuen.
Earlier this year, I visited Lerøy in Båtsfjord, which invested almost 200 million in a new factory.
Restructuring
They call it restructuring, what is happening on land. Restructuring also means removing those who lack capital. No one wants to say out loud who they think will bow to pressure, but several plants in Finnmark and smaller landings in Lofoten are already under tremendous pressure.
Three mayors from three fisheries municipalities also took to the stage in the Øksnes Hall. All three have decided to find a way forward, clearing away the blood dripping from the other manuscripts.
Clearing away the blood dripping of the other manuscripts.
"We are a little worried," says Elisabeth Mikalsen from Røst municipality.
"But we have gotten through this before."
"No," says her namesake, Elisabeth Sørdal from Øksnes municipality, when asked whether she worries for her local community.
Mayor Geir Inge Sivertsen from Senja concurs.
The Norwegian economy, security, food supply, and demography depend on these three mayors being right.
At least, there is no aversion to work along the coast of Northern Norway.
