FISH FARMER TIMELINE 1980


1977 1977


A memorable year, not least for Kenny Dal- glish smash- ing the British transfer record with a £440,000 move to Liver- pool and the special effects of Star Wars hitting cinema screens for the first time. But for the many people in UK who had become involved in growing trout and salmon the big event had to be the launch of Fish Farm- er magazine. There were now enough readers and advertisers to convince IPC that the sector deserved its own publication!


18


1990


30 years of Scottish Aquaculture 2000


2010


Farmers Weekly spawns Fish Farmer mag


New magazine sets out its stall


Published initially by IPC media, as an offshoot of Farmers Weekly, and offering subscriptions for the princely sum of £12 pounds a year, the Surrey-based publication sought to cater for an industry that was rapidly gaining momentum – both in Britain and around the world. Below it outlines its aims: ‘Fish Farmer is a new magazine that reflects the growth of Britain’s fish farming industry. In this first issue we highlight some of the practical problems and the marketing challenge presented by the expansion of freshwater fish farming for food in the British Isles.


‘But it would be wrong to assume that Britain can be iso- lated from Europe in this new and exciting field of food pro- duction. In future issues we will be reporting from the major production areas in other European countries. ‘In addition, Fish Farmer will attempt to keep its readers up to date on technical developments within the industry and to include practical articles which will help all fish producers in the drive to fill the UK market demand.’


Housewives berated


Despite the general global expansion of aquaculture, the UK’s dominant species at this time, rainbow trout, weren’t doing overly well. This was reflected by our first editor, Denis Chamberlain, whose opening editorial was far from upbeat, yet pointed to a number of surprising culprits and a possible solution.. ‘The market for fresh and frozen rainbow trout,’ he cheerily comments, ‘is in the doldrums. Future prospects… give no real cause for opti- mism.’ This gloomy outlook


Zander the Great


One of the more exotic fresh- water fish to be considered for aquaculture, zander were advocated by Alex Behrent as an ideal species to grown in Britain’s gravel pits, despite the fact that the species are cannibalistic. Indeed, even zander fingerlings have a taste for fellow family mem- bers, and – to make mat- ters more labour-intensive for farmers – ‘nests’ have to be made for each pair to


breed and these then need to be collected to harvest the ova. The eggs can then be grown on before the zander is released. It then relies on natural sources, such as small roach, rudd and bream, to grow. Despite the trouble involved, however, ‘once the housewife has tasted it, she finds that it has a very good flavour, and moreover it has remarkably few of the thin bones in the flesh.’


was in part a reflection of Britain’s economic slump and, perhaps more surprisingly, the poor domestic market had been made all the poorer due to ‘imports of cheap Japanese trout’ – not a major factor today.


However, in a fashion that would raise a few female hackles today, the editor came up with a excellent so- lution: ‘The house wife, must be told that trout is no longer an expensive luxury only within the reach of expense account diners!’


Sandy Kinross and John Curgenvon at the Inverness Game Fair, 1977


www.fishfarmer-magazine.com


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