Turkey's Aquaculture Potential and Developments in the Fish Feed Sector

Introduction

Turkey has a coastline of 8,333 km long and is surrounded by sea on three sides. In addition, there are 33 rivers, more than 120 natural lakes, 706 dam reservoirs [1]. The Black Sea in the north of the country, the Aegean Sea in the west, and the Mediterranean in the south. The total surface area of marine and freshwater resources in Turkey is approximately 25 million hectares. Aquaculture in Turkey is a rapidly evolving industry. The first trout farm was established in the 1970s, while the sea bass and sea bream facility was established in 1985. According to the values of the year 2018, there are a total of 2308 enterprises, 1881 in the inland waters and 427 in the seas [2]. The total production of fish for the year 2016 is 588,715 tons [3] of this, 335.320 tons are obtained from fishing, while 253.395 tons are obtained from aquaculture. 151.794 tons (59.9%) of aquaculture amounts comes from the sea and 101.601 (40.1%) from the inland water. The most common types of fish produced are Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) 107,013 tons, Sea bream (Sparusaurata) 58,254 tons and Sea bass (Dicentrarchuslabrax) 80,847 tons. Turkey's aquaculture fastly developed until 2000. However, a falling was observed in current output in the early 2000s. The severe economic crisis that Turkey experienced played an important role here. With aquaculture, output tended to increase in 2003. Some factors such as the recovery of economy, Turkey’s progress in AB membership and financial aid of the state to the sector affected the growth. Since 2013, Turkey has taken the first place in salmon production and the third place in bream and bass production among European countries. Therefore one out of every three fish commercialized to European countries springs from Turkey. Turkey's export of aquatic products sector tends to go up constantly and it has been 870 million dollars in 2017. Although Turkey's exports of fishery products 14 533

tons in 2000, this amount increased to 145 469 tonnes in 2016. The majority of the fish species produced are carnivorous. Animal protein sources constitute 60-80% of the mixed feed compositions of carnivorous fish, which prefer raw materials of animal origin in their feed. The most important part of unit fish production cost is feed with 30-70%. Feed production first began with the establishment of a feed mill in the year 1955 by the private sector in Turkey. Then in 1956 Yem Sanayi Türk AS was established as a state enterprise and continued its activities until 1996. Turkey produces 3533 tons of feed in 1959 reached about 13.5 million tons in 2017. The feeds used in the aquaculture sector were considered as "fish feed" for the first time in 1999 with 38. 415 tons, while it was considered in other feed groups until 1998. Initial studies conducted relating to fish feed production in Turkey was initiated with press pellet systems in 1986- 1987, feeds were predominantly for produced carp and trout, and that fish feed production with extrusion system was initiated in 1998. Turkey's fish feed production quantity is about 460 000tonnes in 2017. Fish feed production is carried out in 25 plants approximately satisfying the need of aquaculture sector of our country. There are 60% of plants producing fish feed in Aegean Region (İzmir 7; Aydın 3; Muğla 4; Afyon 1), 12% in Black Sea Region (Trabzon 1; Sinop 1; Samsun 1), 8% in Marmara Region (Tekirdağ 1; Kırklareli 1), 4% in Mediterrenean Region (Antalya 1), 8% in Southeastern Anatolia Region (Gaziantep 1; Kahramanmaraş 1), 4% in Eastern Anatolia Region (Erzurum 1) and 4% in Central Anatolia Region (Kayseri 1). It is seen that fish feed production plants in our country are predominantly in Aegean Region. The main reason for this may be considered as more common presence of aquaculture in this region. Majority of feed-producing plants prefer extruder feed production technology. It is also seen that feed plants use particularly expander and pellet press systems collectively. This kind of application was determined as 5%, more common in regions other than Aegean Region. All fishfeed production plants are private sector businesses and majority of these businesses are constructions having integrating features such as aquaculture, processing, packaging, importation and exportation. It is see that the fish feed industry develops rapidly in parallel as well as the development of aquaculture in Turkey. There are 30 raw material and additives suppliers in Turkey in accordance with regions. Supplier companies are predominantly in Aegean Region and there is a similar appearance for additives as well. All of these companies are within Turkey and 80% of them worked in cooperation with foreign countries. Also, it is determined that 5% of supplied raw material was organic-certified [4]. There are currently totally 18 feed production machines, feed provision systems, plant installation and software suppliers in Turkey, 8 of these businesses are in Aegean Region, 3 in Marmara Region, one in Central Region and one in Southeastern Anatolia Region. 25% of these support machine and plant installation with domestic production, and the countries supporting foreign companies having suppliers in Turkey are respectively; Norway, Denmark, USA, Germany and China [4]. Turkey has a rapidly growing aquaculture, as well as an aquafeed industry. Fish feed industry has 15 fish feed plant in 2008 and it increased to 25 in 2017. This number will reach 30 and above in next few years. Turkey ranks first relating to fish feed production among all Mediterranean Region countries.