It will be almost impossible for the Mexican tuna port of Ensenada to once again become the same home base for the Mexican tuna fleet, with the same amount of tuna processing plants, as it used to be until a decade ago, said the President of the National Fishing Industry Chamber (Canaipesca) in Mexico, Mr. Carlos Hussong Gonzalez.
Throughout the last decade, the yellowfin tuna market has experienced important changes, such as different suppliers for a national market, which has been growing gradually and is demanding more products.
In the meantime, Baja California has been developing a new industry: tuna farming. The tuna fleet exclusively catching Bluefin tuna, based in this area, has reached booming results so far with the fattening of the tunas for exports to the already defined and extremely successful market in Japan.
According to Mr. Hussong, the reactivation of the tuna processing plants in Baja California would result to be very costly, given that these are not located near the fishing areas nor the markets. Tuna fishing vessels must transport their catch to a long distance before reaching Baja California and there are other cities like Nayarit or Colima that are better located and closer.
This makes it very difficult to position Ensenada back to were is was, in the national supermarkets and consumption centers far from Baja California, because after the tuna ban was imposed, the tuna fishing activities slowly moved to another area, as the industry depended on the national consumption and focused no longer on the international outlet in the US market.
An end to the problems related to the “Dolphin Safe†tuna embargo against Mexico, again enabling the exports of Mexican tuna to the United States would facilitate the possible recovery of the Mexican tuna industry, although it could only hope to reach 30% of the turnover to the US it had in the 70’s.
Source: Mexican Press