Mr Bozan is understandably proud of how far K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7 has come as a company since 1993 and he told World Fishing & Aquaculture<\/i> about his vision for it to become \u201ca global company\u201d.<\/p>\n
Despite this, he said that he still sees potential at home in Turkey. He said: \u201cWe need to move to the Mediterranean though from the south Aegean because there is more room there. The water quality and depth is also better.\u201d<\/p>\n
He told World Fishing & Aquaculture<\/i> that this is where K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7 would look at moving to next. The company will also be looking towards new species of bluefin tuna and seriola (longfin yellowtail) in its hatcheries with trials taking place imminently. The company will also continue to trial new species in future (it has tried 10 species since inception, some successful, some not), but bringing them to the commercial market will depend upon market demand.<\/p>\n
With regards to K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7\u2019s future strategy, he said: \u201cThe Tunisia, Morocco and Panama projects are all about being closer to the main markets of Spain and the USA. The aquaculture industry is 20 years behind Turkey so we can take our expertise there and share it. We want to make big steps as a company, K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7 doesn\u2019t want to just be a Turkish company.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Mu\u011fla Fish Farmers\u2019 Association is a mouthpiece for 65% of aquaculture companies based in the area \u2013 it is both an association and a union.<\/p>\n
It was formed in 2001 by a number of local aquaculture companies \u2013 including K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7, whose founder, Mr Orhan K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7, became the leader of the association in its early days. The time of its inception was important because this was around the time that the Turkish government introduced the legislation to take fish farms offshore and many smaller companies were absorbed by larger concerns at this time. K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7 helped by lending financial support to the association to get it off the ground.<\/p>\n
Mr Bozan took over as chairman in 2004. He said: \u201cIt is the most effective association in Turkey because over the years it has implemented various actions and provided necessary finance to smaller companies, especially during difficult times.\u201d<\/p>\n
And the association had its work cut out again in 2008 when consolidation went through the roof. Mr Bozan says that although these were difficult times for the industry, it has now worked out well for both sides \u2013 it has moved the industry on in terms of quality and safety and the sector has grown immeasurably.<\/p>\n
Presently, the association\u2019s members biggest issue, according to Mr Bozan, is adapting to EU laws, because small things are changing every day. \u201cIt is a big challenge for the sector, especially in terms of the EU\u2019s traceability and water quality measures.\u201d He said that the association is currently working with the Turkish Ministry to work out a programme of financial support to help companies.<\/p>\n
The other issue the association works hard to address is the balance between the need for offshore fish farms and the demands of the tourism industry which Mr Bozan says is a constant balancing act.<\/p>\n
Mr Bozan spoke about the need to set up a station to monitor the water quality in the Mu\u011fla area because other industries are polluting the water which is harmful to the aquaculture sector. He said that the situation is so bad that the fear is that fish will not be able to be farmed in certain areas in 10 years time.<\/p>\n
The association\u2019s other role is to promote education among consumers and get them to eat more fish because Turkish domestic consumption is very low. To this end, the association works closely with The Seafood Promotion Committee.<\/p>\n
Overall, it\u2019s Mr Bozan\u2019s view that the Turkish aquaculture industry needs to work harder to target the domestic market and get more integrated, but at the same time test other global markets so as not to become reliant on business at home as competition becomes more brutal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mr Ihsan Bozan is chief operating officer at the Kili\u00e7 Group but he\u2019s also the chairman of the Mugla Fish Farmer\u2019s Association.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":790,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,26],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aquaculture","category-offshore-mariculture-conference"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=789"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":791,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789\/revisions\/791"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}