Tasmanian abalone exports dive as competition from farmed operations heats up

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Tasmania's farmed and wild abalone industries are reeling amid a crash in the Chinese market. The industry says Tasmania's products are being crowded out of the lucrative export market by cheap, farmed products from China.

Transcript

00:00These shelves are normally empty, but the market crash in China means millions of dollars

00:09of dried abalone remains in Hobart.

00:12We are down 80%, yeah, so it's significant.

00:16At its peak, four tonnes of candy abalone was exported to China in one year, selling

00:23for around AUD$900 per fish, but amid trade uncertainty, a Chinese economic downturn and

00:31a flood of cheaper seafood products, demand has plummeted.

00:35We've never seen a time where we've seen so much agriculture abalone in the market.

00:41Farmed abalone has been hit hard as well.

00:44The competition is forcing the closure of two Tasmanian farms at the end of the month.

00:50Australia's highly prized wild black lip abalone has seen price dip by 30%.

00:57The wild fishery is scrambling to claw back market.

01:00We've been lazy, I should say, we've been certainly lazy and now we really need to step it up.

01:06A new abalone digital marketing push will lead the charge, but bigger fishery changes could

01:12follow.

01:13We're investigating third-party certification of sustainability, progressing that which would

01:20enable entry into additional high-end restaurants, et cetera, and boost our image among consumers.

01:29More controversially, Darvin Hanson, who is Tasmania's biggest quota holder and biggest processor,

01:36is proposing minimum and maximum sizes for abalone on Tasmania's west coast.

01:43That's one way of protecting the big breeding abalone as well as the juveniles.

01:48It's seen in or used in other fisheries such as sand flathead, banded moor wong, western

01:55Australian rock lobster, which, you know, it's a sustainable concept.

02:01It might, however, be a step too far for some.

02:04There's a management issue associated with it and there's a marketing issue associated

02:08with it and they have not been resolved.

02:11For some, however, the tide has turned and now is the time to act.

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