Thursday October 15, 2009

PHOTOS: Japan Blue Fin Farm

Today was a long day. Got up at 5:00 to take a 2 hour ride to another airport and fly to Amami island, 300+ miles south of the main island of Japan in Kagoshima Prefecture, (which is the home of the best green sencha tea in the world!) Then another 2 hour ride down the coast line that rivals Route 1 in San Francisco, except that the road is at sea level and surounded by jungle 15 feet inland from the road for as far as you can see. The scenery and landscape is striking.
Finally at 1:00 in the afternoon we arrived at the Blue Fin Tuna farm on Amami Island and it is very impressive. They are in full production of Blue Fin, and are fully integrated. The process is very complex and labor intensive from every step. They clean the seawater and then grow phytoplankton in large tanks which will help them grow the fish stock used to feed the tuna. There are 80 pens of Blue Fin in the sea, some as close at 300 yards from shore, but 65 feet deep where the tuna are caged in a sea net and are organized by age and size. The tuna grow very fast here as the water temperature and quality is perfect for them. It's a vibrant green color that is crystal clear up to about 20 feet. Very beautiful and intense with the mountainous jungles butting up to the coastline. The other farm up north in Amokusa, Kumamoto Prefecture on the mainland works well, but the tuna are 12 months behind in the growth cycle there, even with the same diet and practices.
The comapany we are visiting, Takuyo is run by Hiroshi Yamamoto. He has been in the business for 35 years and ships 3000 tons of tuna a year throughout Japan. He has 200 employees and is very passionate about making the farm work to be sustainable. They are in full production of farm raised Blue Fin, which looks very promising. The pens are all full, and the tuna range from just over 1 pound up to 160+ pounds. It takes 3 years before they are harvested and ready for market. Up to now, all fish have been raised from wild caught babies. They are on the first set of fish hatched from eggs 6 months ago. It has taken 5 years for them to be able to get the hatched tuna to survive and the aggressive use of technology in the pens and in the feed have helped this.
Hatched tuna are still 2 and a half years away from being harvested, and this is still a research test in progress but it looks very promising for the sustainability of the species.
We're going back to the farm in about an hour to see a harvest and to taste some farmed blue fin. From there another 2 flights back to Tokyo and the Tskukji (pronounced Skeegee) fish market and auction 4:30 am Saturday. NO SLEEP AGAIN!
Here is a brief slide show of the tuna farm and the landscape in Amami. I have some great videos, but it takes too long to upload them and I will post them when back in the states next week. Stay Tuned for more, Domo Arigato!
PHOTOS: Japan Blue Fin Farm