Aquaculture development in Russia showing positive trends in 2011

Russian Federal Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography (VNIRO) has summarized results of the nation's aquaculture sector in 2011 and confirmed positive trends in farmed fish production, reports http://www.megafishnet.com/ with reference to VNIRO.

In 2011 Russian companies produced 135,400 MT of commodity farmed fish, 13.4% up on 2010. Total production volume for aquaculture farms amounted to 163,000 MT, including 28,000 MT of stocking material, the bulk of which is used for recreational and sport fishery.

Mariculture production amounted to 14,000 MT, including ca.8,000 MT of finfish, while the remaining share belonged to seaweed, mollusks and echinodermata. Mariculture production jumped two times as compared to 2010 and five times as compared to 2000. The rise was achieved thanks to positive results of active operations in the Northwest and Far East federal districts.

Today trout farming has been developing best of all, especially in the Northwest federal district of Russia. Within less than one year trout farmers successfully overcame consequences of the extremely hot summer 2010, which affected many farms of Russia's Central and Northwest federal districts. In 2011 the volume of commodity farmed trout reached 20,000 MT or more than 105% of the result of 2010.

Commodity sturgeon farming has been also developing briskly, especially its new and popular branch -production of black caviar for human consumtion. Current trends also include a wider use of own broodstock and a switch to industrial technologies. Commodity sturgeon production in 2011 amounted to 3,000 MT, and black caviar production - 14.5 MT, which was sold mostly on the domestic market. According to expert estimates, now commodity farms have ca.800 MT of female sturgeons which let VNIRO scientists forecast production of at least 20 MT of food caviar in 2012.