The License Illusion: Why Salmon Farming’s Most Valuable Asset Isn’t One

October 20, 2025

For more than a generation, Norway has been the undisputed center of salmon aquaculture innovation. But it’s worth asking whether that innovation has been driven by ingenuity or by incentives — specifically, the incentive of a site license.

In Norway, every major technological leap in salmon farming — Ocean Farm 1, Smart Fish Farm, Hydra — has been tethered to the same anchor: the promise of an “innovation license”. The license is the prize, the asset, and the justification for the investment. The physical structure, however novel or audacious, is often secondary. It’s the paperwork that makes the project bankable.

The result is a kind of innovation tunnel vision. If it doesn’t come with a site license, it’s invisible to Norwegian investors. The license is the gravitational center of the whole ecosystem — and as a consequence, Norwegian thinking about the future of salmon farming is tied to the regulatory benevolence of the Norwegian government.

The land under the house

A site license, in this world, is like the land under your house. Banks are happy to give you a mortgage, in part, because if the borrower defaults, the land remains. It’s a finite, appreciating asset — and in aquaculture, it’s treated exactly the same way.

A farm might burn through cash, face biological challenges, or collapse under regulation — but as long as the license endures, investors can sleep at night. The land, they believe, will always hold its value.

But what happens when it doesn’t?

The Canadian caution

British Columbia offers a brutal answer.

In 2020, Canada’s federal government began refusing to renew open-net pen licenses, beginning with the Discovery Islands. The decision was political, not scientific — a bid to win voter approval in a few federal ridings. Within months, millions in productive assets were rendered worthless and salmon farmers were forced to write off significant portions of their balance sheets. (Not to mention the brutal new reality for coastal communities who depend on those farms)

The “land” under the house vanished overnight.

Farms that had operated for decades — with valid permits, staff, and infrastructure — were shuttered with the stroke of a pen. Court appeals came and went. The lesson remained: a site license is not an asset; it’s a permission slip. Its value lasts only as long as the political mood that sustains it.

Investors who once viewed licenses as enduring collateral suddenly discovered they were built on sand. Pre-2020, Canadian salmon farmers would not have predicted how much the government would turn on them. In fact, the news in 2010 that the Federal government would be taking responsibility for BCs net pen industry was viewed as a positive development. They would not have predicted the enormous injustice to come.

Licenses are permission slips, not legal entitlements

Many readers will no doubt be insisting “this would never happen in Norway, Chile, Iceland, Scotland etc”. Canadians would have made precisely the same statements before they learned that licenses issued “at the pleasure of the crown” were worth nothing if that “pleasure” disappeared.

When the house floats

At Marinova, we’ve taken a different approach. As have several Chinese companies.

Vessel-based systems don’t depend on the goodwill of a single regulator or the impermanence of a coastal concession.

If traditional aquaculture treats the license as a real estate asset, Marinova treats the vessel as the asset. It’s a self-contained production system with intrinsic value, capable of being relocated, repurposed, or sold. By design, it is not a bespoke, location-specific structure that can become stranded should the political winds change. How much value does Ocean Farm 1 have if it no longer has permission to operate?

This model replaces regulatory risk with operational risk — a trade most investors can price. Banks understand vessels. They depreciate, they have resale markets, and they don’t evaporate because an election result changes.

Beyond the license economy

As Norway’s new resource rent tax and environmental constraints narrow the field for license-based expansion, the industry’s reflex to seek security in those same licenses looks increasingly misplaced. They are no longer the stable foundation they once appeared to be — in some jurisdictions, they’re a liability waiting to mature.

The next phase of aquaculture growth won’t be defined by who holds the most licenses, but by who can produce fish without needing one. Mobility, resilience, and operational autonomy will matter more than acreage.

In short, it’s time to stop building houses on borrowed land — and start building ones that can float.

If we’ve learned anything from Canada, it’s that the license is not real estate. It’s a lease. And leases can be revoked.

The future of salmon farming may belong not to those who hold the licenses, but to those who no longer need them.