Chinese Akoya farms suffer near 100% loss of crop

[pbazar]

Akoya Pearl Farms Chinese Akoya farms suffer near 100% loss of crop and Juvenile oysters
Zhanjiang Hit by Worst Downpour in 200 Years
Typhoon Pabuk has wreaked havoc in Zhanjiang, a coastal city of South China, bringing in the heaviest showers in two centuries.
Heavy rainfall has affected 1.17 million people in Zhanjiang and the cities of Maoming and Meizhou, causing economic losses of 1.34 billion yuan (US$176 million), Xinhua reported yesterday.

Floods have damaged a long stretch of the Zhanjiang-Leizhou Highway and the Guangdong-Hainan Railway, forcing the cancellation of a number of trains.
The Tangjia Township in Leizhou has been the worst hit, receiving 739 mm of rainfall in 24 hours, the heaviest in 200 years.

http://www.pearls.com/news2/pp32/typhoon.htm

[pbazar]

Last May, the algae that is a byproduct of widespread use of pesticides and fungicides to protect oysters, formed a carpet of green so thick in Taihu Lake pearl country on China’s east coast that officials had to turn off the water supply to 2 million residents. Only after two weeks of purification treatment was the lake’s water judged safe enough to drink. In the mean time, the price of bottled water had quintupled and many locals still complained about stench.
http://www.pearls.com/news2/pp34/shell_shock.htm

[pbazar]

Prices of Chinese akoya pearls likely to shoot up by 25 to 40 percent, industry players say.



The Chinese akoya pearl industry is now facing one of its toughest times, following a typhoon that devastated many akoya pearl farms located in Xuwen and Leizhou in Guangdong in August.

Up to 55 percent of the oysters in the area, both adult and larvae, are reported to have died, thus Chinese akoya pearl production is expected to drop drastically this year to as low as 3 to 4 tonnes. While some industry players say full recovery will take at least four years, many are buying akoya pearls from Japan or turning to freshwater pearls to replenish their stock.

When a typhoon hit Guangdong Province back in mid-August, none of the pearl farmers there saw the loss coming. "An ordinary typhoon affects pearl farms to a minimal extent. It even helps cleanse the seawater and the rain also provides food to oysters. This time, however, the typhoon brought days of non-stop heavy rain, which meant a totally different story," said Cai Wenjiang, chairman of Dragon's Pearl Co Ltd in Xuwen in Zhanjiang city. Mr Cai explained that the intense heavy rain flooded into the water off the coasts of Xuwen and Leizhou, causing the salinity of the seas there to drop drastically. According to Mr Cai, seawater turned into freshwater to a depth of up to 3 to 4 metres, resulting in the death of millions of tonnes of oysters, fish and prawns. The company lost 70 percent of its oysters in the flood, some only recently nucleated.

Industry players predicted that the effects of the damage would last for years. "Sources say over 55 percent of the oysters in the region was lost. What's more tragic is that not only nucleated adult oysters are dead - countless baby oysters were either killed or badly injured," Cissy Wong, executive director of Hayson International Ltd, a Hong Kong-based Chinese akoya pearl dealer, told Jewellery News Asia. "The baby oysters that survived the storm have become too weak, and cannot support growing pearls of big sizes. This is not a short-term effect we're talking about - the harvest for at least two years will be affected," she added.

Yin Guorong, general manager of Ronghui Cultured Pearls Co Ltd in Leizhou, had a similar opinion. "We lost 90 percent of our oysters in Leizhou. It is like starting from zero again now. I think it will take at least four years for the industry to fully recover," he said.

Jeremy Shepherd, a partner of Xuwen Pearl Paradise Co Ltd, which operates an akoya pearl farm in Xuwen, believes that total production this year will be close to just 2 or 3 tonnes following the typhoon. However, he added that some farmers have already been nucleating, so early production can be expected next summer.

Minimising losses
As not a single akoya company in the area is left unaffected by the storm, prices of Chinese akoya pearls are expected to shoot up by the end of the year. "Next year the prices of akoya will probably go up by 25 to 40 percent," said Mr Shepherd, adding that this may pull the prices of Chinese and Japanese akoya pearls closer together. Telling JNA that his company "lost all the oysters" in the typhoon, Mr Shepherd is seeking new akoya suppliers and is buying more Japanese akoya pearls.

Other companies are opting for Chinese freshwater pearls as an alternative. Among them is Hayson International Ltd. Ms Wong told JNA that the company is offering high-quality Chinese freshwater pearls to its customers while akoya pearls are in short supply. The company started supplying half-drilled medium- to high-quality freshwater pearls two years ago, seeing the improvement in quality, Ms Wong added. "Some clients, Americans in particular, accept freshwater pearls if the quality is very similar to that of akoya. Europe also demands high-quality freshwater pearls."

Although the typhoon brought immense losses to the akoya pearl industry, some industry players do think there is a silver lining in the cloud. "This is a heavy blow to our industry indeed and it may take two to three years for recovery, but to me it is not a completely bad thing. The pearl farming industry is growing too fast and has become more chaotic in recent years: it needs to be regulated. Following the typhoon, fewer but more-competitive big pearl farmers are left, which can be good for the industry as a whole. With government support, I look forward to seeing a more structured and organised industry in the years to come," said Mr Cai of Dragon's Pearl.

[JShepherd]

Another possibly devastating blow to China's akoya pearl industry.
http://www.pearl-professor.com/2008/08/ ... akoya.html