On 9 September, following the official opening the IV Global Fishery Forum, its main event was held: the plenary session “Impact of the pandemic: new challenges for the fisheries industry”.
The industry survived!
The meeting was opened by Russian Minister of Agriculture Dmitriy Patrushev, who provide an overall assessment of the consequences of the pandemic for Russia’s fishery industry and its interaction with global markets. “Once again, we have realised that the need to ensure food security is not just something each state must do internally but a matter of global policy”, he noted.
Thanks to strict observance of preventive measures to combat the spread of COVID-19 among fishing industry workers, serious negative consequences for production were avoided. “Despite the pandemic, in 2020, the Russian fisheries industry achieves a catch in the order of 5 m tonnes and aquaculture production of up to 328 thousand tonnes”, Patrushev announced. The Ministry of Agriculture has forecast that the catch of water bioresources this year will stay at the 5 m tonne level, while the volume of aquaculture will reach 360 thousand tonnes, compared to the 328 thousand tonnes in 2020.
The fishery sector has now taken the path of increasing the share of deep-processing product supplies and developing the associated infrastructure, this being facilitated by a large-scale programme for increasing private investment by granting water bioresource catch quotas. Over the last two years, 20 processing plants have been started up. In addition, the first factory ships are going out to sea.
New sales markets
The new sanitary requirements introduced in ports by China and the resultant drop in imports of raw fish have urged Russian fisheries to work more actively with the domestic market, as well as European ones, as well as to seek new buyer countries. At the same time, however, the dialogue with Chinese partners is continuing, according to the Minister of Agriculture.
Comprehensive development of the sector is being facilitated by improved state support measures. “To increase the catch volume, from next year we intend to grant fuel subsidies to fishery units operating in remoted areas. Amendments have also been drafted to the Tax Code to encourage production of high-value-added food. And to support sales, it has been decided to subsidise domestic transportation of fish and fish products from the Far East”, Patrushev noted.
Dialogue with fishermen
Senior Vice-Chairman of the Council of the Federation Andrey Yatskin stated that, in light of the new challenges for the fishing industry, the priority for the state is to scale up the fishery resource base, renew the fishing fleet, strengthen the scientific research potential and modernise the processing complex. At the same time, there is an active dialogue under way with the industry about their proposals, while laws and regulations are being passed to develop the fishing industry. As an example, he presented the recent law allowing processing on coastal fishing vessels.
“On the initiative of the Council of the Federation, parliamentary control is being exercised over shipbuilding investment projects. Overall investment in shipbuilding exceeds RUB 50 bn”, Yatskin shared with the meeting participants.
He allocated an important place in international co-operation to combatting IUU caught fish, calling on foreign participants and partners to do their best in this and join their efforts to put a stop to illegal catches of bioresources, including by ships sailing under flags of convenience, and unfair competition.
Arkhangelsk Region Governor Alexander Tsybulsky told about the industry’s development in the Region during the pandemic and about state support for maintenance and development of industry-related education and science there.
In the direction of processing
Head of the Federal Agency for Fisheries Agency Ilya Shestakov noted, at the beginning of his speech, that it was entry into a period of investment development of the industry and the changes that had taken place there that had done much to allow Russia to prepare for the challenges faced by the whole world against the background of the pandemic.
The rapid change of logistics chains, new product supply routes, raw material deliveries to factories already built under the investment quota programme and production of deep-processed output helped mitigate the consequences of the pandemic. The fall in exports to China reduced the pollock catch by 14%, though part of the lost volume will probably be restored at year end in season B.
“At the same time, the ‘pollock crisis’ confirmed the need to speed up development of fish processing within Russia”, Shestakov reminded the audience. “Using such a state support measure quotas for investment purposes, in the next few years, a minimum of 55 factory fishing vessels and 24 short factories will be built in our country. By 2030, the share of output with a high degree of processing will rise from the current 25% to 80%”.
Summing up, the head of the Federal Agency for Fisheries stressed that, although the pandemic is still exerting an impact, the department supports the opinion of the experts on gradual restoration of the market. The demand for fish will be supported by such factors as the growing population and healthy eating trends, especially since the perception of fish as a limited and highly valuable protein source was confirmed during the pandemic.
Experience of neighbours
Representatives of Iceland, Norway and the Faroe Islands told about how they coped with the pandemic. Fisheries Minister of the Faroe Islands Jacob Vestergaard, for instance, explained that his country’s fishery industry had survived thanks to diversification of product supplies and boosting of the sales market. The oil price drop last year also worked in favour of the industry. Head of Norway’s Fishermen’s Association Kjell Ingebrigtsen noted that his country’s fishing industry was so used to changes in the weather and markets, to new requirements and restrictions, that even the interruptions in supplies and falling prices of fish did not entail collapse of the industry that was already flexible and open in information terms.
Director for development, Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) Camiel Derichs stated that, during the pandemic, demand for output went up. Moreover, the share of Russian products in it increased since, thanks to the joint work of industry science and fishermen, over the last two years, Russia has joined the leaders in the rate of MSC-certification of production units.
Against the background of the optimistically inclined reports, the announcement by Assistant Director General and Regional Representative for Europe and Central Asia of the FAO Vladimir Rakhmanin was quite a contrast. According to him, the pandemic had thrown back world progress in the fight against hunger by decades and the number of starving people had grown rapidly. The United Nations Organisation once again required enormous efforts to cope with this problem and great hopes are laid on the fishing industry. He also proposed holding a meeting of the FAO Fisheries Committee in 2023 at the VI Global Fishery Forum.
Pollock as the basis
President of the Pollock Catchers Association Alexey Buglak informed the audience that, since the beginning of the pandemic, the pollock industry had suffered financial losses in the order of USD 260 m. The value of deliveries to China and the European Union had increased many-fold, whereas the volume of deliveries to China had fallen four-fold. Enterprises were actively seeking new sales markets, product also going to the domestic market. Against this background, there was a significant rise in production of deep-processed products – fish farce and surimi. The first stage of the investment quotas was already in operation and, given successful implementation of the entire project, up to 40% of the catch could be processed on shore. Harmonious development of onshore processing and the fishing fleet would enable a comprehensive increment in the industry indicators, including an increase in the output volumes of consumption-ready products.
The session participants could also find out about the investment policy being pursued, assessment of the development prospects and proposals for the fishing industry from Rosselkhozbank and Sberbank.
Summing up the conference, Ilya Shestakov noted that, even given a solution to the supply chain problems and closed sales market, the industry would never return to its previous footing. The pandemic had boosted the changes that had already begun and indirectly pushed development of the fishing industry in the right direction so, given rational distribution of resources and efforts, the target indicators of the Strategy for development of the Fishing industry of Russia would be reached successfully.