China is one of the world's largest aquatic producers, with 6 out of every 10 fish farmed in the world coming from China. In recent years, China's farmed commercial fish production has exceeded 27 million tons, the vast majority of which are contributed by freshwater aquaculture, and the production of marine fish is only a mere 1.6 million tons, accounting for 6% of the total.
Admittedly, when it comes to high-end seafood, China has almost no brands that can handle it – salmon (Atlantic salmon) is one if I have to.
Salmon/Atlantic salmon
Since 2018, China has officially entered the salmon farming industry, due to immature technology, there have been many problems in the use of deep-sea cages used for fish farming, and there are often holes in the nets and the phenomenon of fish escape. In addition, projects such as the daily maintenance and cleaning of cages, the feeding of bait and the monitoring of salmon growth are also very difficult issues.
Looking at the world, the most successful country for salmon farming is undoubtedly Norway, and the breeding experience and technical strength are industry benchmarks. Salmon farming in Norway dates back to 1968 and has a history of more than 50 years. Due to its unique geographical location, Norwegians have had great success when they first started raising salmon.
Norway initially farmed mainly rainbow trout, but salmon successfully overtook and became the main species around 1976
In 1972-1975, more and more Norwegians began to invest in salmon farming, and enterprises that had originally farmed rainbow trout also switched to salmon farming. By the 1980s and 1990s, the Norwegian salmon industry had entered a golden age of rapid development. Today, salmon firmly occupies the first place in Norwegian seafood with a proportion of more than 93%, and Norway has also achieved business in the world with a salmon.
Look at the domestic. Since the 1970s, China has also tried to farm salmon in coastal areas such as Dalian, Yantai and Qingdao, but due to high water temperatures and immature technology, this unprecedented plan was eventually "stillborn".
In 2018, I restarted the production plan of "domestic salmon", which is cultured in cold water masses in the Yellow Sea. This cold water mass is 20 to 30 meters away from the sea surface, has a capacity of 500 billion cubic meters, and the temperature is maintained between 4 and 10 ° C all year round, which is very suitable for the growth of salmon.
Location of the Cold Water Mass in the Yellow Sea (area marked by the red line in the figure)
Experts estimate that as long as 1% of the cold water mass is fully utilized, China can produce 500 million salmon per year, with a total output of about 2 million tons. This is a rather staggering production (Norway can only raise more than 1 million tons of salmon per year), which not only fully meets the domestic market demand, but also can be exported abroad in large quantities.
Although China's current technical strength is not yet able to fully develop the cold water mass, this at least provides a practical and feasible goal for the development direction of domestic salmon, and it is only a matter of time before the production is slowly raised. With salmon, China has found a little presence in the field of high-end seafood.
In the field of high-end seafood, in addition to salmon, there is another important role - tuna. China will import a large amount of tuna from abroad every year, although domestic distant-water fishing boats can also catch some tuna, but the output is too low, far from meeting the market demand. Seeing this, some people may think of such a question: Since China can even raise salmon, why not raise tuna?
Bluefin tuna in a cage
Farming tuna sounds like a joke, but in fact, this technical problem was overcome by a Japanese research team as early as 2002. Australia has also begun experimenting with hatching fertilized eggs of tuna in 2010, but hatchlings have only survived for more than 40 days in captivity, and it is estimated that it will take a long time to fully master this technology.
However, in China, there is not yet a single farming enterprise involved in tuna farming, let alone full artificial breeding. The reason behind this is also very simple - tuna farming is a "hard bone", at least it requires long-term capital investment regardless of cost, even if there is strong economic strength, it may not guarantee 100% success.
China is not suitable for tuna farming, and many objective factors have seriously restricted the start and development of the industry, one of the main factors is the lack of natural fisheries (spawning grounds) for tuna near the shore of China.
A natural breeding ground for bluefin tuna, Japan has a geographical advantage
In the central and eastern part of the East China Sea, there is a breeding farm for blue flag tuna, the spawning time is from April to July every year, but the scale is relatively small, the offshore distance is relatively far, and it is basically undeveloped (China's bluefin tuna quota is not much).
In addition, the South China Sea is one of the five major tuna fisheries in the Pacific Ocean, where the resources of big-eyed tuna and yellowfin tuna are relatively rich. These two kinds of tuna are delicious in meat and high in economic value, and are the objects of fishing by distant-water fishing vessels in various countries.
Southeast Asian fishermen carry tuna
In Southeast Asia, there are many countries that covet the "cake" of fishing in the South China Sea (such as Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia), and the commercial competition between fishing vessels in various countries is very fierce. In 2014, Chinese fishing vessels fished 737 tonnes of yellowfin tuna and bigeye tuna, and production was not ideal.
Therefore, whether it is the East China Sea or the South China Sea, even if there are tuna resources in China, it is impossible to make full use of them, and it is even more difficult to catch a sufficient number of broodstock and carry out artificial breeding.
The second constraint is the problem of seedlings.
Currently, global tuna seed is highly dependent on wild-caught and production is very limited. More worryingly, the large-scale harvesting of juvenile tuna can lead to a shortage of reserve resources and even a fatal hazard to the entire population.
Bluefin tuna juveniles
According to data released by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), about 6 million tons of tuna are caught each year, with a total output value of nearly $12 billion. Under the long period of overfishing, the population of blue flag tuna has decreased by 98% compared with the 50s and is now on the verge of extinction. The yellowfin tuna population has decreased by more than 70 percent, and the bigeye tuna has only 20 percent of its original reserves.
Therefore, harvesting wild seed is not a long-term solution, but will exacerbate the extinction crisis of tuna. The culture methods used in Malta, Croatia, Spain, Mexico and Australia are based on the capture of wild seed, which is essentially the exploitation of wild resources.
Tuna culture cages in Australia
The last factor is that the technical threshold and the cost of breeding are too high.
In terms of technology, China's tuna farming field is basically blank. In 2010, the Yellow Sea Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Japanese tuna farming enterprises reached a cooperation intention, and the two sides discussed and studied the artificial breeding and breeding of tuna. Overall, China's relevant scientific research has just started, and there are still many basic tasks to be solved urgently.
In addition, the high cost of breeding is enough to dissuade a large wave of enterprises. The meat production rate of tuna is not high, and on average, 15 kilograms of squid, mackerel or sardines are consumed per kilogram of meat per kilogram. In order to guarantee the meat quality and taste of marlin, many countries do not feed artificial compound feed, only feed fresh bait fish, so the cost of breeding is quite high.
Bait fish used to feed tuna
For all these reasons, China is not yet suitable for farming tuna. Even without considering cost, technology and experience are an insurmountable mountain. In short, the tuna this "hot potato" can not be taken down in our country for a while and a half, as for whether there will be action in the next step, we may wish to wait and see!