Business
Landlocked Kingdom Of Lesotho Pulls Off Sushi Export To Japan
But South Africa’s gold industry, which has produced a third of the bullion ever mined, is in a state of steep decline as costs soar and shafts plunge deeper to extract the ore, while other sectors such as platinum are in deep trouble because of low prices and labour unrest.
Over the past two decades the industry has shed tens of thousands of jobs, many from Lesotho. So the 100 jobs created by Highlands Trout, now owned by two South Africa-based companies – Advance Africa Management Services and Pure Ocean Aquaculture – since Gold Fields sold its interest some time ago, are certainly a boon for the area.
But the kingdom’s economy, mostly based on subsistence farming and the export of water to South Africa, needs to generate many more, perhaps by tapping its natural advantages such as its raw beauty to encourage more tourism. Off a winding paved road built two decades ago to haul cement to build the wall of the Katse Dam, the outlying villages that lie along dirt tracks are poor but not gut-wrenchingly destitute, with subsistence farming of maize and the raising of cattle and sheep the visible life-bloods of the local economy.
At Highlands Trout, the fish are raised in floating cages and fed on special pellets imported from France. Grown to an optimal size of 2.5 to 2.8 kgs, the fish are essentially “fresh frozen” as within an hour of being scooped from the water and cleaned, they are put in a blast freezer – the start of a roughly month-long journey to Japan.
There is no futures market for trout but the global price of the product fluctuates with that of fishmeal, Slabbert said. “The average is about $5 a kilogram. We get the upside of that, we are getting the highest price globally from our Japanese client,” he said.
In another improbable twist to the tale, this “pink gold”, rainbow trout is native to the Pacific Rim of North America and Russia, far closer to Japan than the highlands of Lesotho. The species’ adaptability makes it the ideal farmed trout, and it has been introduced to at least 45 countries and every continent except Antarctica. But Lesotho is one of few places with the clean and cold water conditions needed to produce a quality that makes the cut in Japan.
Copyright Reuters 2014
