A Case Study on Economic Analysis of Sea Cage Farms in the Black Sea, Türkiye

Abstract

Aquaculture is one of the most important sectors in Turkiye's exports. The export value increases annually. In parallel with the developments in aquaculture production and processing technologies, there is a significant increase in aquaculture exports. The increased production and export of aquaculture products carry future challenges that need to be properly tackled to ensure the competitiveness and economic sustainability of the sector. The main objectives of this research were to understand the value chains of aquaculture products, identify production costs, and make a general analysis of the market in the Black Sea Region. Random sampling was used to ensure that farmers were equally represented in the survey. To fill this purpose, 16 farmers were interviewed from four sea cage location sites. Furthermore, fish traders and respected stakeholders were interviewed. It is possible to divide the cage farming in the sea cages in the Turkish coastal water of the Black Sea into 3 groups according to their size with a capacity of 250 tons/year (small), between 501-999 tons (medium), and more than 1000 tons/year. According to the results, 75% of the fish produced in cages is trout, and 25% is sea bass in the Black Sea. The most important expense items of enterprises consist of variable costs. Among the variable costs, the purchase of fry fish, feed purchase, and labor costs constitute the most important expenditure items. Among the fixed costs, the most important expense is depreciation costs. The unit cost of one kg of fish varies between 2.5-3.0 euros. Considering that the trout and sea bass in the Black Sea are at the level of 3.5 Euro, the profit rate of the enterprises is between these levels. Recently, since trout from the Black Sea has been exported to the Far East Country (particularly Japan), its price has also increased. In 2018, the average retail price (including VAT) and medium selling price of sea bass and trout were at a level of 5.24 and 5.34 Euros respectively. Despite all these positive developments, climate change continues to pose a threat to the emergence of diseases and marketing problems.