MURCIA. If you buy sea bream, sea bass or corvina soon in a fishmongera or in one of the regional supermarkets there are many possibilities that the animal not only has not been raised in Spain, but it is easier for the fish to come from countries such as Greece or Turkey. The reason for this change in origin is due to a storm that, through a pandemic, has long since left us: ‘Gloria’, which devastated the Mediterranean coast in January 2020, including the aquaculture facilities that mark it. The material damage of the storm not only caused the loss of adult specimens that were growing at that time, when some cages were uprooted, but also prevented the sowing of new fry for the next cycle, which are the ones that will be caught from July, one year and a half later.
Although damages and production losses vary depending on the facility, the national aquaculture association, Apromar, calculates that the drop in production will be around 30% in total in gilthead seabream where the Valencian Community is the leader with half of the national total, and above the 20% in total in seabass, where the Region leads the ranking. A gap that will have to be covered by increasing purchases from Greece, the European leader in captive fish farming, and probably also from Turkey. The first has hardly seen its production decrease, and the second has maintained it.
Consumers will hardly notice a difference in price, as “especially fish from Turkey it is even a little cheaper than the Spanish one “once applied the increase of costs for the transport.” Another thing is the quality; if the consumer can choose, it would be advisable to opt for Greek fish if there is no Spanish “, indicate sources of the sector. Part of the price difference lies in the quality of the product, the conditions of rearing and its diet, regardless of the fact that the EU health requirements are much stricter than the Turkish ones.
“With the storm Gloria, all the fish farms in the Levante suffered significant damage. The problem with these damages is that the production cycles last approximately 20 months, so if you suffer damage of this type during the process, you cannot modify it ”, They point out from the Association of Aquaculture Companies of the Region of Murcia (FARM). “Let’s say you sow in March 2020 and harvest in 2022. In this process many risks are run,” they add. And what can be done if events as unexpected as a storm happen? “Hold on as you can,” they respond. “Already in 2019, a tornado charged the tuna production,” they explain to illustrate that it is not the first time. “For this, it is good to study time series of the environmental characteristics of the area in which you want to install the fish farm in question, but if a storm comes, a tornado or something like that you cannot control it,” they point out. A year and a half later, the Gloria storm is fattened with regional seabass.
– .
