Wesley Malcorps travelled several times to Iran and wrote a brief article with Dr. Arash Shirvani about Iran’s contribution to the global seafood market. The article was published in the International Aquafeed Magazine (June edition).
Iran is currently one of the most important aquaculture producers in the Persian Gulf region and ranked 19th by volume in 2016 on the global aquaculture prodution list. Capture fisheries and aquaculture production combined grew about 11.5 percent annualy since 2004, with the aquaculture production share on the rise. Its geography, size, diversity of water bodies and climate shows great potential for further aquaculture expansion.
Delicious locally produced sturgeon dish in Bandar Abbas.
Iran has the ambition to almost double the seafood production to 1.9 million MT in 2025, in which more than half is produced by aquaculture. Cage farming, species diversification and integrated farming systems on land could contribute to achieve these goals. However, this requires rapid expansion and development of feed production, farm management, hatchery production and disease control. Additionally, climate and political obstacles have emerged, which makes the future hard to predict. Nevertheless, Iran is definetly a country with great potential for aquaculture.