Production in Turkish fisheries was lower in 2014 than the previous year while aquaculture production was stable. Fisheries production fell by over a fifth maintaining the overall trend of the last decade, but farmed fish, despite a sizeable decrease in the production of farmed trout, remained at broadly the same level as in 2013 thanks to increases in output of seabass and seabream.
Türkiye
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Hasan Girenes is President of Agriculture and Fisheries in the Yasar Group, a Turkish industrial conglomerate. He is also Chairman of the Izmir Fish Producers Association. Fish farming is an important industry in Turkey, where 230,000 tonnes of fish were cultivated in 2014 of which 83,000 tonnes were exported. Although aquaculture plays an inceasingly important role in supplying the world with healthful protein, the industry suffers from a negative image. In this comment Mr Girenes discusses how this can be changed.
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Agromey is among the largest producers of seabass and seabream in Turkey with an annual production capacity of 15,000 tonnes. The company, like other big producers, is integrated with its own feed production division, fish cultivation, processing, packaging and distribution.
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In a sector crowded with farming and processing companies Akuvatur stands out for its approach, which differs in several respects from other producers. Owned by an academic, Dr Haluk Tuncer, Akuvatur has concentrated on species other than seabass and seabream. In addition, the company grows fish to sizes that are usually larger than the typical market-sized fish.
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Kiliç Seafood is Turkey’s biggest producer of farmed fish, cultivating seabream, seabass, meagre, and trout with a total annual production capacity of approximately 40,000 tonnes. The company is fully integrated with hatcheries, feed production, processing, sales, marketing and distribution. Its products are exported to 44 countries around the world making it Turkey’s leading exporter in this sector.
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Kopuzmar was established in 1991, but operations actually started five years earlier when the company put 600 gilthead seabream juveniles in cages in the sea. Since then the company has grown significantly, producing juveniles and fish feed, farming seabream and seabass, and processing fish in to value added products.
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More Aquaculture is a producer and exporter of seabass, seabream, meagre and trout. The company has its own production of seabass and seabream and a network of suppliers that provide the company with the trout that it requires to meet its commitments. More has been in the aquaculture business for the last 13 years and is owned by the AKG Group, a conglomerate with interests in building materials and tourism apart from fish.
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While Turkey is now well known for its seabass and seabream farming operations, production from which exceeds even that of Greece, the country also has a huge trout industry. Annual volumes of trout dwarf those of seabass and seabream and amount to almost three fifths of total EU trout production.
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Camli is part of the Yasar Group, a holding company with interests in a variety of industries including food and beverages, agriculture, paints, and paper. Within the group Camli is responsible for agriculture, livestock, fisheries, and feed. The company farms seabass, seabream and small quantities of meagre, which are mainly exported to markets in the EU.