Sardine catches in Brazil have sharply decreased in recent years, sources attending a recent meeting in Sao Paulo on Aug. 30 told Undercurrent News.
Sardine catches in Brazil totaled 95,900 metric tons in 2012, 98,600t in 2013, 99,100t in 2014, 86,500t in 2015 and 45,000t in 2016, Dc reported.
The drop in sardine catches may have been caused by the effects of the El Nino phenomenon and water warming. The drop has prompted a rise in prices, Folha reported.
The fishing industry in the Itajai Valley, the country’s main production area for canned sardines, has been affected by almost empty vessels during the fishing season, while canneries – like Gomes da Costa and Camil – have also been affected by lower catches, Valor reported.
According to an Undercurrent News source, the drop in sardine catches in Brazil might have been one of the causes pushing Camil to sell its fish business. The firm is rumored to be attempting to sell its canned fish division before doing an initial public offering in October. But the main reason for the potential sale would be that “they want focus on their rice business”, the source noted.
Despite lower sardine catches, Grupo Calvo, a Spanish cannery that owns Brazilian brand Gomes da Costa, posted the best financial results in its history in 2016.
The firm plans to invest in a by-product factory in Brazil for producing fishmeal, fish oil, as well as feed and its management sees the opportunity to double sales in Brazil, Latin America’s largest market, where fish consumption is rising.
At the end of last year, the Brazilian ministry of development, industry and foreign trade (MDIC) reported that the country’s foreign trade chamber (Camex) decided to reduce import tax rates on frozen sardines for 2017.
The objective is to prevent the shortage of these goods, it said.
Import taxes on frozen sardines [non-canned] were reduced from 10% to 2% up to 80,000t.
“This year [the Brazilian] government authorized import of (non-canned) sardines at 2% tax. The reason is that it has been the poorest local catch in decades, while quotas are grabbed per market share,” one of the sources told Undercurrent, pointing out that large Brazil-based canneries as Gomes da Costa, Calvo and Camil were the biggest beneficiaries for the tax reduction.
The measure aims to guarantee supplies when fishing for the species on the Brazilian coast is prohibited, according to the MDIC.
From January to September 2016, Brazil imported 34,660t of sardines for the value of $30.5 million, while during the same period in 2011, there were no shipments, it said, according to Agencia Anba.
Morocco is the largest external supplier of sardines to the Brazilian market. From January to September, the country sold the equivalent of $13.6m worth of fish to Brazil, according to MDIC data. Oman ranks fourth on the list of top sardine exporters into Brazil, with shipments of $2.27m over the same period. Other important suppliers are Lithuania and Holland.
The main problem in the Brazilian sardine fishery is the lack of a space for discussion, while fishing capacity has increased amid improved technologies, according to professor Paulo Ricardo Schwingel, Dc reported.
In recent years, fisheries management has hardly evolved, as a result of the inertia of the federal government and of successive changes in the ministry responsible for fisheries, he said.
2017 Undercurrent News