Cod catch in northern Russia increased by a quarter in 2022

At the end of 2022, the volume of cod catches from coastal fishing in the Northern Basin (the Barents Sea, parts of the Norwegian, Greenland and Kara Seas, adjacent areas of the Arctic Ocean.— “b”) amounted to 29.9 thousand tons. This is 24.6% more than in 2021. Catch of all cod species (haddock, burbot, etc.) “b”) increased by 17.8%, to 37 thousand tons. This was reported by the newspaper Vedomosti with reference to the data of the Federal Agency for Fisheries.

Vedomosti notes that in 2022, cod and codfish production returned to 2020 levels. The fall in production occurred after the FSB border service began to demand that Russian fish be delivered to ports in a live, fresh or chilled form in 2019. In the case of the delivery of fish in a processed form, including after gutting and decapitation, fishermen were threatened with fines of up to 200-300% of the value of the catch. As a result, in 2021, the cod catch decreased to 25 thousand tons (-16.9% in annual terms), cod – to 31.9 thousand tons (-11.9%).

As experts explained to Vedomosti, it is impossible to comply with the FSB requirement in the conditions of the Northern Basin. It takes at least two days for fish to travel from the fishing area to ports in the region, during which time the unprocessed fish will spoil.

In 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin amended the law “On Fisheries”. In the new version of the law, fishermen were allowed to gut and decapitate fish during coastal production. Thanks to this, in 2022, fishing companies were able to restore the volume of cod and cod catches.

Olesya Pavlenko