World waking up to British Columbia Seafood

British Columbia continues to use safe and healthy farming practices to assist nature in staying ahead of the snowballing requests for seafood today.

By Seawest News

British Columbians know all about the bounty from their seas and are passionately protective about what lies beneath our oceans.

Now the world is quickly waking up to what we have been gathering and growing in a sustainable way over the decades.

Farm-raised salmon is B.C.’s highest valued seafood product, the province’s top agricultural export, and generates over $1.5-billion towards the B.C. economy, resulting in over 6,600 jobs.

In 2016, B.C. exported $1.3 billion in seafood products to 80 markets, an increase of 17 per cent in value from 2015.

Our top five seafood export markets are United States $799 million (60 per cent), China $265 million (20 per cent), Japan $106 million (8 per cent), Ukraine $31 million (2 per cent), and Hong Kong $24 million (2 per cent).

The fastest growing export markets of the top 10 markets are Ukraine (95 per cent), South Korea (61 per cent), Germany (51 per cent) and China (31 per cent).

Our top Five Seafood Exports include $524 million in farmed Atlantic salmon; $142 million in crabs; $71 million in hake; $47 million in shrimp & prawns; and $45 million in herring.

Go here to read how BC seafood lands on your plate. An article by US-based writer Tracy Ellen Beard