From June 26 to 28, during the period of ASC tilapia standards
training workshop to auditors and producers, CAPPMA together with WWF has an
interview in Hainan focusing on tilapia farms
and processing factories. According to the visit, optimistic opinions have been
discovered on the face of tilapia industrial experts. Compared with 2012, the
price of tilapia has increased about 15%. The export price of tilapia processed
products is 5% higher than it was at this time last year, according to the
processing factories.
It is obviously that the first half year’s business index of
tilapia industry has promoted largely than last year. In 2012, the whole
tilapia industry has suffered sluggish for the reason of international economic
recession. The common situation is that Chinese tilapia farms and processing
companies are hardly to get benefits while some even appeared deficit. Learning
from the lesson, certain farms have changed to other species to farm. Based on
the situation, this year’s farming area of tilapia in main producing areas will
reduce 20-30%. This number will be higher in Guangdong province.
However, from the view of cultivation, this year is much better
than 2012. On the one hand, the rate of disease has declined. Through stocking
supplement of fingerlings, the industry returns to normal producing getting rid
of the disease influence to juvenile fish. On the other hand, price rising has
encouraged the enthusiasm of farmers. The third reason is that both trend of
domestic and international market is improving.
After two years’ industrial integration, tilapia industry will
enter into a stable phase in the following years. No big fluctuation will
emerge most of the industrial stakeholders thought. At present, pond
cultivation is still the main form of tilapia farming. Cage cultivation just
exists as subsidiary. And mariculture tilapia lies on the initial stage of
testing. Generally, farming feeds are mostly from Guangdong Evergreen and
Tongwei group such big feed companies.
During the visit, some large scaled farms are eager for joining
into ASC certification. According to our forecast there are more than 20
farming companies would like to apply ASC tilapia standard certification, and
more than 10 processing factories are looking for ASC CoC qualification.
