Image: Aquatir

Caviar sector unites to fight US proposed ban

WORLDWIDE
Tuesday, May 02, 2023, 07:00 (GMT + 9)

Caviar companies at Seafood Expo Global 2023 were surprised by the US proposal to impose a total ban on this product, even if it was grown using aquaculture.

The proposal in question was first published by the US Fish and Wildlife Service on May 25, 2022. The main contributor to the proposal is the reclassification of four sturgeon species as endangered: Russian sturgeon (Acipenser gueldenstaedtii), thorn sturgeon (A. nudiventris), Persian sturgeon (A. persicus) and stellate sturgeon (A. stellatus). If fully amended, the rule would make import, export, seizure, possession, or other activities related to the four species illegal and prohibit "delivery, receipt, transportation, transport, or shipment in interstate or foreign trade."

Image: Frosista Caviar

The problem, as stated by several companies during the exhibition in Barcelona, Spain, is that the proposal makes no distinction between products produced sustainably through aquaculture and wild-caught products from poaching. The rule would impose restrictions on caviar "however produced," meaning that all sturgeon-related trade would be banned in the US.

Raymond Tanghe, Key Account Manager at Royal Belgian Caviar, says several caviar companies are working to build a coalition of people who have amassed information and research to refute any claims that the caviar industry is harming wild sturgeon populations.

“Different distributors formed a group where our biologist reviewed all peer-reviewed publications on aquaculture releasing sturgeon into the wild and did so with success,” Tanghe said.

Several caviar companies from Belgium, Italy, France and elsewhere are raising and releasing sturgeon juveniles into rivers to help restore endangered populations, a process that will be hampered if the huge U.S. caviar market is suddenly shut down.

Sergey Yakovlev, head of Aquatir caviar trading department, said that the company does not consider it fair to completely close the market when caviar producers across Europe comply with the rules, including being registered in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

“We are replenishing the sturgeon broodstock on our river,” Sergey said. “We don’t think it’s fair to close the market, especially if most of these companies are following all the rules and are involved in environmental projects.”

Some of the companies most threatened by the US ban are located in China. Frosista Caviar, CEO Fu Wenyan said that his company's main market is the United States. Approximately 25 percent of the company's caviar by volume is shipped to the US.

Tanghe said the US is not as important to Royal Belgian Caviar as it is to most Chinese caviar companies, but if caviar is banned for everyone, China will need to find more outlets, potentially flooding Europe with additional products and lowering prices.

Source: fishretail  (traslated from the original in Russian)

[email protected]
www.seafood.media

Print