ROMANIA
The strengths of the ďŹ sh farming sector in Romania are capable of containing the challenges it faces.
Some of the challenges faced by ďŹ sh farmers in Romania are gradually being addressed
Newly enacted legislation should remove barriers to Romanian ďŹ sh farming The Romanian aquaculture sector is made up entirely of freshwater ďŹ sh farms. These cultivate a number of ďŹ sh species, of which production of common carp (Cyprinus carpio), bighead carp (Hypophthalmichthys nobilis), silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix), trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), and Prussian carp (Carassius carassius) dominates.
A
ltogether some 17 freshwater species are produced in Romania, many of them in polyculture with other species in large earthen ponds, where the different trophic levels within the pond are exploited by the different species. Romania has a history of freshwater farming that goes back centuries. Total production today is close
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to 13,000 tonnes, a figure that needs to increase, according to all the stakeholders in the sector. However, for Catalin Platon, president of the National Fish Farmers’ Association (ROMFISH) the challenge is to create a strategy that is purely for the aquaculture sector rather than having an aquaculture policy that is subsumed under fisheries policy.
Demands for aquaculture to have its own comprehensive policy Fish farming is a form of livestock farming, he argues, so in fact it belongs under agriculture policy, or even better would be to have an independent aquaculture policy. In the current framework laws on aquaculture are mixed in with laws
on commercial fisheries and the public and even some decisionmakers confuse fish farming with fisheries and refer to farmers as fishermen and their activity as fisheries. The lack of clarity makes it more difficult to create a distinct identity for the sector for media and dissemination purposes. Above all, however, investors are looking for clear, predictable, and long-term
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