Now entering the second half, Russia’s salmon season in the country’s Far Eastern region is posting better-than-expected numbers.
Russian harvesters had pulled in 63,000 metric tons (MT) of salmon through 18 July, according to the Russian Federal Agency for Fisheries, 2.3 times higher than what was caught in 2020, the most-recent comparable year, as Russian salmon runs come in two-year cycles. The catch also running higher than 2021.
Russia's salmon season started on 1 June, and lasts through the end of autumn, with humpback (pink) salmon making up the majority of the harvest.
The region has a projected harvest total of 322,000 MT in 2022, in line with average catch totals, composed of 190,000 MT of pinks, 90,000 MT of chum salmon, 33,000 MT of sockeye, 8,000 MT of coho, 510 MT of chinook (king) salmon, and 35 MT of salmon trout or “cherry” salmon.
By region, 54,000 MT have been caught in Kamchatka, 1,800 MT in Magadan, 4,350 MT in Khabarovsk, 1,800 MT in Sakhalin, 439 MT in Chukotka, and 629 MT in Primorye, according to data from the All-Russian Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography (VNIRO). Thus far, the catch has been made up of 38,112 MT of pinks, 17,862 MT of sockeye, 6,500 MT of chum, 39 MT of cherry salmon, 450 MT of chinook, and 7 MT of coho.
This year’s salmon season has been somewhat disrupted by rising global economic uncertainty, with exports to the European Union, U.S., and Canada curtailed as a result of sanctions imposed in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
In response, Russia’s fisheries authorities has established a special working group to monitor the seafood industry’s performance, with a focus on supplying more fish to the domestic market. Russian Federal Agency for Fisheries Head Ilya Shestakov called on the agency and his subordinates to control supplies of fish from vessel to shelf, in order to secure the availability of Russian seafood at retail at affordable prices. As a part of the effort, the agency is now tracking exported volumes of seafood and those supplied to retailers domestically.
The Primorye branch of the fishery agency has been specially charged with securing the smooth dispatch of the salmon catch from Vladivostok – the capital of the region. The railway center in Vladivostok is one of the main methods salmon is transported to the country’s more-populated west, and Russia has long sought to improve logistics between the far east and western cities like Moscow. However, the country is facing challenges caused by sanctions, such as a looming shortage of refrigerated containers, which the country is trying to combat.
In addition to tracking rail traffic, the fisheries agency has also commissioned monitoring of the truck transport of seafood. The monitoring has so far revealed that auto transport is primarily used to deliver salmon to Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk in Siberia, as well as Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk in Ural. The central part of Russia, the country's south, and its northwest are all supplied via rail.
So far, according to the Federal Agency for Fisheries, the season has been running smoothly, and prices have remained stable.
Photo courtesy of the Russian Federal Agency for Fisheries
