FAO in Murmansk: together for food security in the Arctic

Developing the wide Russian national dialogue for the UN Food Systems Summit 2021, the FAO Moscow Office continues to strengthen contacts with Russian regions. On 6-8 April, the FAO delegation visited the Murmansk region. Igor Shpakov, FAO consultant, accompanied the Office Director.

During the visit in the Russian North, Oleg Kobiakov, FAO Moscow Office Director, and Andrey Chibis, Governor of the Murmansk Region, had a working meeting. The two parties discussed prospects for cooperation and collaboration within joint events and regional dialogues.

“The Murmansk region makes a significant contribution to ensuring the country’s food security,” the governor said. There are “140 fisheries companies, which harvest and process fish, and ensure supplies to Russia and many other countries.”

According to the statistics provided by Andrey Chibis, in 2021 the production of aquatic biological resources in the Murmansk region increased to 650 000 tonnes (by 8 percent compared to 2021). Over 2022, 112 000 tonnes of fish have already been harvested.

“In the Murmansk region, a social project entitled “Our Fish” is in place, and in its framework, northerners can purchase goods without extra charge and at a limited price, fairs are regularly open here,” shared Andrey Chibis. “Beyond fish, the Murmansk region is a major producer of apatite concentrate, from which fertilizers are produced, which are also shipped around the world and represent a guarantee for food security.”

“For FAO, the Russian Federation is one of the leading member countries: a leading agricultural, fishing, forest power, a major donor of international development, including FAO assistance programmes. As for the Murmansk region, it is a transportation gateway, a major producer of fish and agricultural products, and a wealthy forestry,” Oleg Kobiakov highlighted during the meeting.  

“Being a non-politicized technical cooperation organization, in the current difficult international situation that directly affects Russia due to the Russian-Ukraine conflict, FAO takes a balanced position. In practice, we intend to continue joint activities with Russia on all tracks: agriculture, fisheries, forestry, food security, and rural regions’ development. For these purposes, we will organize both in-presence and hybrid meetings, joint research and events with our numerous Russian partners: national research institutions, universities, producers and consumers’ associations and the private sector.”  

“The FAO Liaison Office with the Russian Federation is considering the possibility of creating regional sites. I am sure that the Murmansk region is a promising candidate here, and we are going to continue this joint fruitful work,” Oleg Kobiakov concluded.

During the meeting with Sergey Abarinov, Minister of Natural Resources, Ecology and Fisheries of the Murmansk Region, the two parties noted the role of the region in increasing the production of commercial aquaculture, the total volume of which in 2021 exceeded 70 000 tonnes that became a record figure in the entire history of fish culture development in the Arctic. Atlantic salmon, sea and rainbow trout, as well as mussels, have become the main objects of farming.

According to Sergey Abarinov, over the past ten years, the number of fish farms in the region has doubled that has allowed the Murmansk region to become one of the top aquaculture producers and provide about 20 percent of aquaculture production in the whole country.

Oleg Kobiakov noted that the International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture (IYAFA 2022), declared by the UN, underscores the significant contribution of these industries to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Artisanal fisheries and aquaculture have a unique potential to encourage changes in the harvesting, processing and distribution of aquatic products.

FAO believes that the theme of the Year is also relevant to Russia, including in the context of fisheries of Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia, and the Far East of the Russian Federation. The events organized this year under the auspices of FAO are aimed at promoting the dialogue and cooperation between artisanal fishers, fish farmers, other fishery workers, governments, and other key partners in the industry, and FAO is ready to provide full assistance to Russian fishers and fish farmers.

Oleg Kobiakov also met with Alexander Okhanov, CEO of Zigrand LLC, the leading regional producer of snow carb (Chionoecetes opilio) in the Barents Sea. The parties discussed the prospects for increasing sustainable crab harvesting in the Barents Sea, as well as the issues which local fishers have faced because a number of countries had suspended access to their ports for Russian vessels.

The Director of the FAO Moscow Office invited the representatives of the fishing industry in the region to take part in the dialogue with FAO on the whole range of issues related to the fisheries food chains, noting that FAO is an authoritative and neutral independent platform to address a variety of industry-specific issues.

Earlier Oleg Kobiakov had given a talk at the Polar Branch of the Russian Federal Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography (PINRO) at the workshop “The Work of the FSBSI ‘VNIRO’ in the International Fisheries Organizations of the North Atlantic with regard to the Changing International Cooperation Environment” on FAO activities in the context of the International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture.

At the center of the ensuing discussion were the issues connected with the continuation of the Russian Federation’s cooperation with the member countries of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC), Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) and North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization (NASCO). The forum participants also touched upon the prospects for the work of Russian scientists within the framework of the Joint Russian-Norwegian, Joint Russian-Icelandic and Joint Russian-Faroese Fisheries Commissions.

“One of the most pressing current problems in the industry is the search for modalities of cooperation with partners in connection with the decision to suspend the membership of Russia in ICES against the background of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, and, possibly, in the near future, in some other regional fisheries management bodies,” said Oleg Kobiakov. “It is important to bear in mind that the potential response of Russia will have an impact on the productivity of international fisheries management organizations as a whole, on the management of common fisheries resources and, ultimately, on the state of the resources, food security and well-being of hundreds of thousands of the industry workers and their families.”

The participants in the PINRO workshop expressed support for ensuring scientific communication and data exchange with their partners in North Atlantic fisheries organizations and said it was inadvisable to disrupt the established channels of cooperation aimed at sustainable use of transboundary and international aquatic biological resource stocks.

During the meetings in Murmansk, Oleg Kobiakov informed his interlocutors about a large-scale humanitarian aid operation in Ukraine under the auspices of the United Nations, the FAO’s share of which is USD 50 million, and which consists of providing 100 000 rural households with money, seeds and fertilizers.