Industry || Portuguese companies should consider investing in tuna farming – an industry that involves raising tuna fish in tanks or enclosures, to be sold for food.
According to Minister of Agriculture and Sea Assunção Cristas, the opportunities are “extraordinary” – yet, for reasons unknown, not enough businesses are coming forwards.
Assunção’s statements came during a trip last week aboard a fishing boat off the coast of Fuseta, Olhão, where local tuna fishing company Tunipex currently manages a tuna farm with over 1,000 fish.
The tuna are then exported – usually to Japan, one of the world’s tuna farming ‘heavyweights’ and avid consumers of bluefin tuna – a species abundant in the Algarve’s waters and widely considered to be the best to use in sushi dishes.
During her trip, the minister also had the opportunity to see the Portuguese Sea and Atmosphere Institute (IPMA) test out ‘corvina’ farming. As the method is currently being tested, the fish is not being sold but donated to charitable associations.
In a bid to help develop Portugal’s fish farming industry and “learn from the best”, the minister revealed that she is trying to establish a partnership between the University of the Algarve and the University of Kinki in Japan – which she visited in July.
