Iran's production of farmed sturgeon meat is expected to reach 3,400 tons by the end of the current Iranian year (March 19, 2020), says the head of Iran Fisheries Organization.
Nabiollah Khoun-Mirzaei added that farmed caviar production is expected to reach 800 kilograms by the fiscal yearend.
According to the official, Iran produced 2,800 tons of sturgeon meat as well as 590 kilograms of farmed caviar in the last Iranian year (ended March 20, 2019), Mehr News Agency reported.
Iran’s total seafood output reached 1.26 million tons last year from around 32,000 tons on average in the last four decades.
“Tehran and Moscow will extend the ban on fishing beluga sturgeon in the Caspian Sea, as both sides are concerned about the endangered status of the caviar producing species,” Khoun-Mirzaei said last week.
More than 90% of world's caviar are produced in Caspian Sea, Mehr News Agency reported.
“We agreed that the ban on commercial fishing for this fish from the Caspian Sea should continue,” he added, noting that Iran and Russia both share the same concerns about the existential threat facing sturgeons in the region.
The official said the two countries signed a preliminary agreement to renew the ban on Thursday. He would not elaborate on how other states on the Persian Gulf, namely Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, would react to the ban.
The five nations bordering Caspian Sea agreed in September last year to prolong for another year the ban on fishing sturgeon, while announcing that further extensions would be possible, given the endangered status of the fish.
Studies show that most of the world’s sturgeons spawn in rivers flowing into the Caspian Sea. Iran has some of the harshest laws on poaching the fish while authorities have sought to persuade other countries in the region to implement similar regulations to protect the fish.
Khoun-Mirzaei said the agreement on sturgeon came as part of the document signed between the fishery authorities of Iran and Russia at a meeting in Tehran on Thursday.
He said the two sides have held such meetings twice a year for the past four years to bolster cooperation in various fields.
Once among Iran's most famous exports, the industry nearly collapsed because of trade restrictions and an international clampdown on the capture of sturgeon from the Caspian Sea.
The long, prehistoric fish, whose glittery, bead-like eggs make the choicest caviar, had been driven nearly to extinction by overfishing.
Now, dozens of Iranian producers are raising sturgeons legally on fish farms.
