The higher than expected quota for the first anchovy fishing season in the north-center of Peruvian waters, announced on late afternoon on Friday by the Peruvian production ministry, is expected to give Peruvian fishmeal processors a chance to reverse recent losses. In past years, earnings of the country’s fishmeal and fish oil suppliers have been hit by lower catches, partially due to El Nino and other events. But this year, anchovy catches for the country’s north-center fishing region have been set at 3.32 million metric tons, 18% higher year on year, Peru’s ministry of production, Produce, said Friday.
Peru’s marine institute, IMARPE, has announced that the season will begin on April 12 while five days of exploratory fishing started on April 7. The total allowable catch is in line with the “very positive” forecasts that some, such as Pesquera Exalmar’s CEO Rosana Ortiz, have been making. The biomass of anchovy in Peru reached 10.86m metric tons, according to IMARPE. It is 35% higher than the 24-year average and 79% higher than last year’s winter levels. This has been possible thanks to the responsible management of the resource and the juvenile protection policy, said the new production minister, Daniel Cordova, adding that he will not accept “any type of pressure”.
Data on the anchovy resource should “bring down all questions and predictions of what we called ‘Nostradamus of fishing’ around anchovy depredation”, said Peru’s national fisheries society’s president, Elena Conterno, pointing that the latest anchovy evaluation was a proof of the “good fisheries management carried out by IMARPE, Produce and the industry”. In the last season, there have been accusations of fishing a high number of juvenile anchovies and fishing during the species’ reproductive period as well as questioning IMARPE’s analysis, Conterno said.
“The biomass of about 11 million [metric tons] confirms that all decisions taken by the authorities and that they are respected by the industry, putting the sustainability of the resource first. All the accusations were false, as noted at the time,” Conterno said. The first anchovy fishing season of 2018 in the north central area of the country will boost Peru’s economy by generating formal employment, Conterno added. Meanwhile, super prime fishmeal prices had risen to $1,750 per-metric-ton amid strong Asian demand. Fishmeal buyers from China and other Asian countries have been buying large quantities of “pre-sale” Peruvian fishmeal under forward contracts for May/June delivery, sources told Undercurrent.
2018 Undercurrent News.