In 2023, Russia emerged as the global leader in salmon fishing.
At a meeting of the operational headquarters dedicated to the results of the agricultural sector’s work in the past year and preparations for the spring sowing, Minister of Agriculture Dmitry Patrushev announced that Russia had become the world’s top country in salmon fishing for 2023.
Russian fishermen caught 608.8 thousand tons of Pacific salmon in 2023, surpassing the United States in this regard. Since 2018, Russia has been the leader in the volume of these fisheries, except for the poor harvest year in 2022. Pacific salmon is mainly harvested by Russia, the United States (Alaska), Japan, Canada, and South Korea.
The total volume of Russian fishermen’s catch in 2023 reached 5.3 million tons, exceeding the 2022 figure by 8.7%.
Valery Stepanov, a seafood supplier from the Russian Far East, explained, “The catch of salmon in Russia takes place in special fishing areas. These areas used to belong to collective farms, state farms, and fish cannery plants. Later, the areas began to be provided on a contractual basis but without specifying a specific term. Since 2008, such contracts have been concluded on a competitive basis for a period of 10 to 25 years, depending on the decision of the regional competition commission. In the Russian Far East, there are about 1,600 marine areas for the extraction of salmon species such as pink salmon, chum salmon, sockeye salmon, coho salmon, cherry salmon, and humpback salmon. The main region for salmoniform fish on the Pacific coast is Kamchatka, where more than half of the total catch is obtained. More than 30% of the catch falls on the Sakhalin region; salmoniform fish is also caught in the Khabarovsk and Primorsky Territories, the Magadan Region, and Chukotka. These data are available from the Russian Federal Agency for Fishery.”
According to Valery Stepanov, in recent years, Russia has increased the catch of Pacific salmon, but due to the peculiarities of reproduction, the yield fluctuates from year to year. “The most successful years are characterized by a catch of over 1 million tons globally, while in some poor harvest years, the volume decreases to 600 thousand tons. As for Russia, 2023 is the second-highest year in history for salmon fishing. In 2018, 677.9 thousand tons were caught. The third place is 2021, when 538.7 thousand tons were caught.”