Fish meal prices in Peru, the world’s biggest producer, have jumped to the highest in more than a decade amid low anchovy stocks off the country’s coast, lifting feed costs for salmon and shrimp farmers.
Spot prices for prime fish meal were $2,370 a metric ton last week, climbing 66 percent from $1,430 a ton at the start of the year, according to data from Peru Broker SA. Falling output of fish oil and meal in Peru may create an “explosive” price situation, industry analyst Oil World said last month.
Peru is the biggest fish-meal producer, harvesting schools of anchovy that feed on plankton in the nutrient-rich Humboldt current flowing north along the west coast of South America. The country’s oceanographic institute Imarpe said Oct. 27 that biomass in the southern fisheries zone was insufficient to recommend a fishing quota, and is conducting a survey through Nov. 20 to reassess the status of the anchovy population.
“Higher oil and meal prices will add to cost of aquaculture producers for some carnivorous species, including salmon and shrimp,” Audun Lem, a deputy director for fisheries and aquaculture at the United Nations’ Food & Agriculure Organization, wrote in an e-mailed reply to questions.
Fish meal is the most expensive since at least the end of 2000, when spot prices were $475 a ton, according to Peru Broker data covering the period.
Fish Oil
“Fish oil and meal prices continued to strengthen in Peru as well as in China and other locations in the week through Nov. 14 in response to deteriorated Peruvian production prospects, cutting export supplies,” Oil World wrote in a comment on its website last week.
Imarpe wrote in an Oct. 4 report that adverse conditions in the northern fisheries zone affected the anchovy stock, and recommended that fishing activities remained suspended.
Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said today there’s at least a 70 percent chance of the El Nino weather phenomenon, as sea temperatures warm in the tropical Pacific Ocean. El Nino conditions can reduce the cold coastal currents off South America’s west coast and reduce Peru’s anchovy catch.
The Peruvian anchovy is the world’s biggest fisheries catch, with a harvest of 4.69 million tons in 2012 from 8.32 million tons the prior year, according to data from the FAO. The southeast Pacific anchovy stock is fished to the limits of sustainability, with no potential for increases in production, according to the organization.
Fish Meal
Rising fish meal prices have prompted fish farmers to find cheaper substitutes, and the percentage of the meal used in aquaculture feed has fallen in recent years, the FAO wrote in a biannual report. About a third of fish meal and oil is now made from by-products and waste rather than whole fish, it said.
“Meal and oil prices are already high and farmers are increasing the content of other oils and meals as a result,” Lem said. “Farmed production has become more efficient in the conversion of feed, and it’s not such a large problem as it has been made out to be.”
The main reason for high salmon prices is a combination of stable supply and strong demand, according to Lem.
Source : Bloomberg