The EU produced 3,400 metric tons (MT) of organic seabass and seabream in 2015, up from 1,600 MT in 2012, finds a new study compiled by the European Commission’s European Market Observatory for Fisheries and Aquaculture Products (EUMOFA).
EUMOFA’s “EU Organic Aquaculture” report said the apparent doubling of production was “not fully in line with some comments heard from some important producers and retailers on the market’s capacity to absorb new quantities of organic seabass/seabream.” Nevertheless organic production was at “significant levels” in France and Italy.
Of the 3,500 MT of bass and bream produced by France in 2015, 20 percent or 700 MT was organic, while Italy’s harvest of 13,800 MT comprised 1,600 MT of organic fish (12 percent).
A change in the geographical structure of the production can also be noticed between 2012 and 2015, with the “center of gravity” of the organic production moving towards the western markets like Italy and France from Greece, which is the bloc’s leading producer of bass and bream, said EUMOFA.
Of the total 110,000 MT of bass and bream produced in Greece in 2015, just 0.4 percent or 400 MT was organic.
Greece’s organic production decreased in the 2010s to stabilize at around 400 MT with only two companies, Kefalonia Fisheries and Galaxidi, continuing to grow organic seabass and seabream, and only Galaxidi producing organic juveniles.
Within the EU, seabass and seabream production occurs exclusively on the Mediterranean coast, which means the only member states involved in organic farming for these species are Italy, Greece, France, Croatia (300 MT) and Spain (400 MT).
In total, the EU produced 173,900 MT of bass and bream in 2015.
