economy

The sea urchin is a marine animal with a high food value and a high content of medicinal substances.

Its eggs have long been used as food as they contain crude protein, crude fat, carbohydrates, phosphorus, vitamins and the like.

At present, as dynamic efforts are made worldwide to artificially breed sea urchins that grow fast with a high survival rate, the scale of the farming of them keeps growing and the methods of the farming develop in various ways.

The DPRK has bright prospects for sea urchin farming.

Its seas have a good ecological environment and conditions suitable for the growth of sea urchins. In particular, the quality of sea water is very good and underwater rocky areas with hard rocks and the places where there are pebbles and sand unmixed with mud provide a good environment for their growth.

In recent years, many units of the country have made good achievements in the farming of the sea creature.

Researchers of the Academy of Fisheries under the Ministry of Fisheries are pushing ahead with the work to reconfirm the suitable places for sea urchin farming in different fishery units located in the east and west seas of Korea. Meanwhile, they are concentrating their efforts on technical innovation for solving the scientific and technological problems arising in the farming, including the matter of reducing feed costs through artificial breeding and mixed farming with kelp and seaweed and the matter of raising the survival rate, on the basis of the study of the global trend of development in the farming.

The Soho Fishery Station under the South Hamgyong Provincial Fishery Management Bureau established a method of artificial breeding of sea urchins, thereby having stocked the sea with lots of young sea urchins since 2022.

At present, it works to create an environment suitable for the growth of young sea urchins, as it expands the farming area and provides feed sources like marine plants in the waters favourable for the growth of the young.

The Chongam fishery station for supplying feed for salmon has also channelled efforts into sea urchin farming, thus producing sea urchins 1.5 times more than last year.