Tac Vigo 2024
From promoting the sustainability of mussels to increasing collaboration with scientists and achieving the long-awaited unity in the Galician mussel farming sector. These are some of the proposals included in the manifesto ‘Our rafts, our way of life’ that the Galician Mussel Producers’ Organisation, Opmega, has claimed today in Vigo.
Within the framework of the TAC! Festival, and in an event attended by the Mayor of Vigo, Abel Caballero, the producers’ organisation defended the social, economic and nutritional importance of mussels, a sector which, explained Paloma Carballo, head of the Aquaculture Area of the Directorate General for Fisheries Management and Aquaculture of the MAPA, reached a production of 192,000 tonnes in 2022 and a turnover of more than 55 million euros, accounting for 90% of aquaculture production in Spain.
In this sense, Carballo also put on the table the challenges facing the mussel sector, such as the fall in production as a result of factors such as the lack of seed, the contamination of the estuaries, or changes in salinity.
For his part, the mayor of Vigo, Abel Caballero, focused his speech on the nutritional quality of mussels, a product that he defined as ‘haute cuisine’ and added that the mussel sector is ‘an integral culture’ and that an ‘economy of quality of life, satisfaction and nutrition’ is generated around this species. In this sense, he recalled that the consumer no longer buys ‘just anything’ and takes into account the origin and that the product comes from sources of work that do not involve abuses; an aspect that is guaranteed with Galician mussels.
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Lino Suárez, Operations Director of Opmega, brought the event to a close by reading the manifesto in defence of the mussel sector. In total, ten points:
1. To promote the sustainability of mussels in an integral way, and to transmit, to the different administrations involved in the management of marine resources and spaces, the environmental, social, economic and cultural characteristics of the mussel farming sector and of the people involved in its management and exploitation.
2. Promote gender equality in all phases of the mussel value chain, guaranteeing that women have access to equal working conditions, as well as in decision-making spaces.
3. Involve local communities, maintaining clear and constant communication with them about the objectives, processes and decisions that may affect them, through newsletters, social networks and the web, and organising open days where they can express their opinions and concerns.
4. Promote the consumption of mussels, boosting their nutritional value and their recognition as a superfood.
5. Promote the implementation of certifications and good sustainability practices in management and exploitation throughout the mussel value chain.
6. To highlight and transmit the low environmental impact of mussel farming in mussel rafts, adding value to our activity.
7. Improve governance and transparency systems, ensuring effective and efficient control and monitoring, including their proper implementation to meet sustainability objectives.
8. Facilitate and promote collaboration between the scientific community and the fish farming industry, cooperating in improving information and data collection, increasing scientific knowledge, research capacity and technology transfer.
9. To work for the unity of the whole sector in order to be able to respond as well as possible to future problems and to make this profession attractive to new generations.
10. To protect and preserve the marine environment and its living resources against pollution and environmental degradation.
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