It is one of the maritime products most consumed in our country and its price has increased alarmingly. According to RPP, the price of the squid In different markets in the capital, it can reach 26 soles per kilo, when before it was between 2 and 6 soles. The price has quadrupled.
This situation has caused concern in Peruvian households, which often turn to squid as an alternative to chicken. It has also caused alarm among artisanal fishermen, who have indicated little availability for this seafood product.
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Consulted by the aforementioned media, the professor of the National Agrarian University La Molina Luis Alfredo Icochea pointed out that between January and July of this year, 70% less has been caught than what was caught in 2023. This has been attributed to the sudden cooling of the Peruvian sea.
Jesús Barrientos, Vice Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture of the Ministry of Production (Produce), reported that squid has not been extracted in the usual volumes during this time of year.
“Currently, squid is not being caught in the volumes that fishermen have regularly caught throughout our country, basically due to environmental and weather conditions that have caused it to disperse. It is an important resource for the public table, but we have to look for alternatives,” he said in an interview with RPP.
Alternatives could be species such as machete, hake, bonito, mackerel or anchovy, considering that seasonal change should be taken into account to understand the availability of marine resources.
“I was yesterday at the Villa María fishing terminal (…) and what I can say is that there is good landing of machete, hake, bonito and mackerel; at the moment, there are alternatives that can be associated. It must be taken into account that there are seasonalities and temporalities, in the case of landings of squid, normally, during the year, the largest landing is in the first half; in the second half, it decreases,” he explained.
“Last year, conditions were very favorable for this resource and we had a landing of nearly 600 thousand tons, a productive issue that generated more than 800 million dollars for the country. Obviously the decrease affects, but we must also recognize that conditions have favored other resources, such as anchovy. Last year, anchovy did not do well; this year we have a very good recruitment,” he added.
When will the price go down?
According to Barrientos, the scientific information available indicates that conditions for squid will improve in the spring-summer of 2024.
“The spring-summer conditions are the best in which the total recovery (of squid) will take place, and from the end of the year there will be a very large recovery. We have a survey, a scientific cruise that is also planned for those dates, which is the best time to continue exploring how the dynamics are going in order to be able to extract appropriately since this is temporary. But there is a guarantee that the resource is there and obviously the availability will be there,” he said.
Thus, the price of squid will decrease “most likely, from when we feel a little more heat, we are talking about November, December of this year when we will be in full recovery.”
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