According to historical records, there have been many severe famines in Hamgyong Province in the northern part of the Korean Peninsula, with poor crop harvests and many people starving. At the same time, the fishing resources in the eastern waters of the Korean Peninsula were extremely rich. In the context of the lack of land food resources, rich marine resources become an excellent choice.
As a result, the people of the peninsula began to go out to sea to fish, and the main catch was the narrow cod (yellow line narrow cod). In North Korea, South Korea, and northeastern China, the narrow cod is better known as the Ming Tai fish. There are many versions of the story about the origin of the name of the Mingtai fish, but either way, the MingTai fish plays the role of "famine savior".
Theragra chalcogramma
The cod has had an indelible impact on both the history and culture and economic development of North and South Korea. In North Korea, the cod is a "life-saving fish" with a mountain of grace; in South Korea, the cod is revered as the "national fish" – in a sense, the cod is not just a seafood, and even a cultural symbol and historical complex.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the rise and fall of The Korean cod industry</h1>
In the 1950s, South Korea was able to catch 270,000 tons of cod per year in the surrounding waters, and the main production area was the Sea of Japan (Note: the Sea of Japan belongs to the high seas). What is the concept of this yield? It should be known that the current consumption of cod in South Korea is only about 260,000 tons, and the production capacity in the 50s can fully meet the annual demand of Korean cod.
Cod fishing site
As offshore fishery resources began to "bottom out", countries in Northeast Asia have developed distant-water fisheries, carried out "blue enclosures" in the North Pacific Ocean, and fished day and night at sea. By the 1960s and 1970s, the distant-water fisheries of the Soviet Union, Japan and South Korea were already very developed, especially the Soviet Union, which was extremely strong overall, and even took the lead in running to the Antarctic Ocean to catch Antarctic krill.
In the 70s and 80s, the Soviet Union created an Antarctic krill "fishing empire" with "single efforts", looking at the world, at that time, only Japan and South Korea had the ability to "share a piece of the pie". During the Soviet era, Japan's distant-water fisheries firmly ranked second, followed by South Korea, and its overall strength was called an "industry benchmark".
Antarctic krill
In fact, for various distant-water fishing countries, the commercial development value of narrow cod is no less than that of Antarctic krill, although the resource reserves of the latter exceed 500 million tons, but due to the difficulty of development, the current global production capacity is still very low, and the economic benefits are far less than that of narrow cod.
The meat is tender, delicious, and less polluting (advantages of deep-sea cold-water fish), and it is also an authentic "real cod" that is very sought-after in the international market. Interestingly, the Japanese market at that time was the world of sashimi, and the custom of eating sushi was prevalent. Affected by market factors, Japan's ocean-going fleet has a special interest in seafood such as bonito, tuna, and snapper. In addition to Japan, the Soviet Union was also very competitive, but the Soviets preferred seafood with high oil content and were not interested in high-protein, low-fat fish such as narrow cod.
Perhaps it was because of the "big release" of Japan and the Soviet Union that South Korea had the opportunity to become the world's largest fishing country for cod at that time. In terms of the number and competitiveness of enterprises, South Korea has obvious advantages in the development of narrow cod.
stockfish
Unfortunately, in the 1990s, due to rising global temperatures and overfishing, the Cod, which South Koreans have always been proud of, suddenly "collectively moved" – the cod's habitat continued to move north in lower water temperatures, all the way to russia's Sea of Okhotsk and the Bering Sea at the northern tip of the Pacific Ocean.
After losing its resource advantage, South Korea's National Academy of Fisheries Sciences has tried a variety of ways to reverse the decline, such as releasing a large number of narrow cod seedlings near the coast of South Korea through artificial breeding, and even some people have started the idea of artificial breeding. However, these efforts ultimately failed to save the "life-saving fish". Today, there is no trace of the pollock on the east coast of the Korean Peninsula, and Russia has successfully replaced the Korean Peninsula as the world's largest fishing and exporter.
Sea of Okhotsk and Bering
Data released by Russian state media shows that the catch of Russian mingtai fish has exceeded 1.7 million tons in 2016, and the fishing quota is still increasing further. In 2021, Russia's quota for stench was set at 1.97 million tonnes, an increase of 8% over last year, marking the third consecutive year that the Russian Fisheries Agency has increased its quota for the catch of alider.
Apparently, Russia has made the Khenchaga cod industry a "key development target." In the North Pacific, Russia's "chips" are not only narrow cod, but also Pacific cod and herring. In 2021, Russia's quota for Pacific cod is 212,000 tons, and the quota for herring is 354,000 tons, and the size of these fishery "cakes" is really the envy of neighboring countries.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the "export" road of the Russian cod</h1>
Although Russia's production of cod is the largest in the world, the main consumption route is not domestic sales, but export. There are not many aquatic products processing enterprises in the Russian Far East, and the production capacity is limited, so the hoarded cod can only be transferred to neighboring countries for "processing" at the fastest speed.
It is understood that in the first five months of 2020 alone, the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East exported 162,000 tons of seafood, of which 56.2% were shipped to the Chinese market. From the perspective of a single product, the export volume of Russian cod exceeds 90,000 tons, accounting for the heaviest proportion, far exceeding the export volume of salmon with 23,000 tons and shrimp and crabs by 0.2 million tons.
Russian cod (Pacific cod)
For Russia, the most cost-effective "agent factory" is not South Korea, but the Yanbian region of China's Jilin Province. First, the labor force in Yanbian is relatively cheap (labor costs in Russia and South Korea are very high), and the processing cost is low; second, Yanbian is close to the two narrow super consumer markets of South Korea and North Korea, and the transportation cost is low (from Yanji to Seoul, the straight-line distance is only 640 kilometers, which is closer to North Korea), and the location advantage is clear at a glance.
Around 2010, the annual processing capacity of narrow cod products in China's Yanbian region reached more than 60,000 tons, with a total output value of more than 700 million yuan, and 80% of the Mingtai fish sold in the Korean market came from China's Yanbian region. With the upgrading of equipment of domestic aquatic processing enterprises and the official entry into force of the China-South Korea Free Trade Zone Agreement, the future production capacity is expected to exceed 100,000 tons or more. In short, from fishing to processing to marketing, Russia, China, North Korea and South Korea "take what they need", all of which are beneficiary countries.
Mintai fish processing plant
Some people may ask, will Russia's narrow cod resources "sit on the mountain and eat the sky" and usher in a similar fate as South Korea?
There is some truth to this misgiving. Although the resources of the cod are very impressive, if overfished for a long time, it is likely to pose a threat to wild resources. In 2008, for example, the global decline in the catch of narrow cod directly led to a significant reduction in fishing quotas in 2009 and 2010.
The size of the narrow cod gradually became smaller
Many scientists worry that cod could repeat the "mistakes" of Atlantic cod and fall into an overfishing stalemate. In addition, the narrow cod is also the main food ration for halibut, fur seals, humpback whales and the endangered Streller sea lion, and fishing in countries in the North Pacific may lead to a shortage of natural reserves, which can be a disaster for marine animals of higher trophic grades.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > the Chinese market: how chaotic is the "real and fake cod"? </h1>
There are many kinds of cod sold in China, including silver cod, northeast cod, Alaskan cod, French cod and other more than 10 species, but after processing, you can often only see the flesh of white and red (some are pure white flesh), which is difficult to distinguish between true and false.
From the price point of view, the price of cod on the market ranges from 13 to 130 yuan / catty, and sometimes even the professional buyers of major fresh e-commerce platforms are difficult to distinguish the authenticity. In fact, cod that can be bought for tens of yuan is likely to be counterfeit, and the real high-grade cod can often sell for more than 100 yuan.
At present, the biggest problem in the domestic cod market is the confusion of naming. For example, the Common French Silver Cod on the market is actually not related to the cod family, and its real identity is the small scaled canine toothfish, which belongs to the naked cover fish family in biological classification and is an authentic Antarctic fish. For example, the real body of the "dragon cod" on the market is actually oil fish, scientific name is spiny snake mackerel, the taste is relatively rough, it is not at all comparable to the real cod, eating too much is easy to cause serious diarrhea.
Spiny snake mackerel (oil fish)
True cod includes only the fish of the cod family, namely Pacific cod, Atlantic cod and yellow-lined cod. In addition, Greenland cod is considered a subspecies of Pacific cod, alaskan cod and Russian cod are other names for yellow-lined cod, which, although different, also belong to the category of "true cod".
Atlantic cod
Pacific cod
The phenomenon that the cod market is shoddy and fake is not news, which makes many consumers headaches. In response to this market chaos, the most effective solution is to establish a complete certification system, label all listed aquatic products with "identity cards", and mark the specific sea areas and biological names of fishing. In this way, consumers can distinguish between authenticity and completely cut off the back road of bad businesses.
What do you think about that? Feel free to leave a message in the comments section to discuss!