Russia’s salmon and trout production filling counter sanctions gap

According to the results of 9 months of 2021, commercial cultivation of salmonids reached 120 thousand metric tons in Russia the output exceeding the volume for the same period in 2020 by 29%.

The figures published by the Federal Agency for Fishery indicate that the share of trout and Atlantic salmon in the total structure of commercial aquaculture production has reached 45%, although more than a decade ago it was about 5%, and last year it was 30%.

The cultivation of North Atlantic salmon increased 2.3 times hitting 20.34 thousand metric tons (8.9 thousand tons in 9 months of 2020).

Trout production increased by 18% up to 99 thousand tons. The geography of trout farming is very extensive ranging from the Caspian Sea to the Arctic, from the Northwest to the Far East of Russia.

After Russia introduced retaliatory measures to anti-Russian sanctions, about 120 thousand tons of salmonids, mainly Norwegian salmon, fell out of the domestic imports. Now in only three quarters of 2021, the Russian salmonid farmers reached this indicator. At the same time the Pacific salmon catch in the Russian Far East exceeded 538 thousand tons (the third best result in the history of the fishery).

Salmon farming is the most promising direction of aquaculture. The integrated Salmon Farming project, that is, the development of commercial fish farming of salmonids using industrial and ranching aquaculture technologies, is included in the Strategy for the Development of the Fisheries Complex of the Russian Federation until 2030, approved by the Government in 2019.