TEHRAN – The head of Iran Fisheries Organization (IFO) has said that based on the agricultural development programs set in the country’s seventh National Development Plan (2022-2026) the organization has targeted 200 tons per year of caviar production by the end of the program.

“According to the programs of the agricultural sector in the seventh development plan, the production of 20,000 tons of sturgeon meat and 200 tons of caviar is targeted,” Hossein Hosseini said in a conference held on the occasion of National Caviar Day.

As Mehr News Agency reported, the official put Iran’s total fishery production in the previous Iranian calendar year 1401 (ended on March 20) at 1.361 million tons, of which 599,000 tons were farmed and 762,000 tons were fished.

Hosseini put the value of the country’s fishery production in the mentioned year at 1.19 quadrillion rials (about $2.4 billion), noting that the trade balance of the sector was $565 million positive.

According to the official, the country exported 605,000 tons of fishery products in the previous Iranian year which was a new record high. Caviar accounted for 2.2 percent of the total exports in terms of value.

Referring to the statistics of sturgeon production in fish farms, Hosseini said: “Sturgeon meat production increased from 363 tons to 4,626 tons, and caviar production also increased from 11 tons in 1400 to 18 tons in 1401.”

He noted that there are currently 196 sturgeon breeding farms in the country, adding that these farms have the capacity to produce 8,000 tons of sturgeon meat and 80 tons of caviar.

“The farms are scattered in 22 provinces, but 50 percent of sturgeon production is related to northern provinces,” he said.

Speaking at the same conference, Naser Karami-Rad, the director general of the Office of Restoration and Protection of Aquatic Genetic Resources at IFO, said that the organization has special plans for the development of sturgeon farming in the country.

EF/MA