3 weeks ago
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TURKEY: Sitting successful his spacious bureau with a presumption of the Black Sea, Tayfun Denizer smiles: his rainbow trout, raised successful submerged cages, person made him a affluent man.
“Our exports surged from $500,000 successful 2017 to $86 cardinal past year, and this is conscionable the beginning,“ said Denizer, wide manager of Polifish, 1 of the Black Sea’s main producers of what is marketed arsenic “Turkish salmon”.
In its infancy conscionable a decennary ago, accumulation of trout -- which successful Turkey is astir exclusively farmed for export -- has exploded successful enactment with the planetary request for salmon, contempt disapproval of the intensive aquaculture required to workplace it.
Last year, the state exported much than 78,000 tonnes of trout raised successful its cooler bluish Black Sea waters, a fig 16 times higher than successful 2018.
And it brought successful astir $498 cardinal for Turkish producers, a fig acceptable to summation but is inactive acold from the $12.8 cardinal netted by Norwegian salmon and trout giants successful the aforesaid year.
Russia, which banned Norwegian salmon successful 2014 aft the West imposed sanctions implicit its annexation of Crimea, accounts for 74.1 percent of “Turkish salmon” exports, followed by Vietnam with 6.0 percent, and past Belarus, Germany and Japan.
- ‘Spectacular success’ -
Stale Knudsen, an anthropologist astatine Norway’s Bergen University and a specializer connected Black Sea fishing, said Russia offered “an disposable marketplace that was casual to access, adjacent Turkey”.
For him, the “spectacular success” of trout is besides down to Turkey’s acquisition and the exertion utilized successful farming oversea bass and oversea bream, a tract successful which it leads Europe.
Turkish producers person besides benefitted from the country’s ample fig of reservoirs wherever the food are a raised for respective months earlier being transferred to the Black Sea.
There, the h2o somesthesia -- which stays beneath 18 degrees Celsius (64.4 Fahrenheit) betwixt October and June -- allows the food to scope 2.5 to 3.0 kilogrammes (5.5-6.6 pounds) by the clip they are harvested.
Last, but not least, is the price.
“Our ‘salmon’ is astir 15 to 20 percent cheaper than Norwegian salmon,“ said Ismail Kobya, lawman wide manager of Akerko, a assemblage heavyweight that chiefly exports to Japan and Russia.
“The taxon whitethorn beryllium antithetic but successful presumption of taste, colour and soma quality, our food is superior to Norwegian salmon, according to our Japanese clients,“ Kobya told AFP astatine Akerko’s office adjacent the northeastern municipality of Trabzon, wherever a Turkish emblem flies alongside those of Russia and Japan.
Inside, a 100 oregon truthful employees successful agelong bluish waterproofs, greenish caput coverings and rubber boots behead, gut, cleanable and debone trout that has an Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) certification for liable farming practises.
- Disease risks -
“Over the past 2 years, galore Turkish producers person moved to get those certifications,“ said Knudsen, though helium does not judge specified labels are ever a warrant of sustainability.
“I deliberation the rationale down that is not lone to go much sustainable, but is much importantly a strategy to effort to participate the European markets... wherever the Norwegians person immoderate benignant of control,“ helium said.
In a 2024 study, researchers from a Turkish nationalist institute raised concerns that “the accelerated maturation of the trout farming sector... led to an uncontrolled diminution successful the endurance rate” of the fish.
Pointing to the “spread of diseases” and “improper breeding management”, the researchers recovered that astir 70 percent of the trout were dying prematurely.
Polifish, which besides has an ASC certification, acknowledged a mortality complaint of astir 50 percent of their food stocks, predominantly successful the reservoirs.
“When the food are small, their immune systems aren’t afloat working,“ said its lawman wide manager Talha Altun.
Akerko for its portion claims to person “reached a signifier wherever we person astir nary disease”.
“In our Black Sea cages, the mortality complaint is little than 5 percent, but these are farming operations and thing tin happen,“ Kobya said.
- ‘Fake fish’ -
Visible from the shore, the food farms person attracted the wrath of section fishermen disquieted astir the cages, which person a 50-metre (165-foot) diameter, being acceptable up wherever they formed their nets to drawback anchovy, mackerel and bonito.
Mustafa Kuru, caput of a section fishermen’s union, is simply a vocal hostile of a farming task that has been acceptable up successful his sportfishing portion conscionable 70 kilometres (45 miles) from the Georgian border.
“The cages artifact the question of the food and what happens then? The food commencement leaving the area,“ helium said, accusing the trout farmers of pumping chemicals into their “fake fish”.
He said a deficiency of food stocks successful the country had already forced 2 boats from his larboard to formed their nets overmuch further afield -- disconnected the occidental seashore of Africa.
“If the food leave, our boats volition extremity up going to rack and ruin successful our ports,“ helium warned.
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