Analysis of the economic performance of salmon farming in submerged and surface cages in the Black Sea

The production period for salmon farming in the Black Sea comprises the winter period and is limited to seven months, due to high water temperatures during the summer time. As an alternative strategy, temporary cage submersion during the summer season might be a solution for salmon grow-out throughout the year. Therefore, this study was conducted for comparative evaluation of economic performance of submerged and surface cages, by analyzing structural costs and returns for Turkish salmon farming in the Black Sea. As a result of the temporary cage submersion strategy, economic profits increased by nearly 70%, granting higher values of financial indicators with increased net profit (685,652.5 $ year(−1)) and margin of safety (89.6%), compared to the traditional surface cage (397,058.5 $ year(−1) net profit and 88.4% margin of safety). The “What-if” analysis showed that profits from both cage systems were sensitive to variations in sale price, and the simulation by 10% reduced export market value may decrease revenues, with less financial profit loss for the submerged cage over the surface once. Hence, temporary cage submersion seems to be an alternative farm management strategy with extended production cycle and higher profits for the sustainable development of Turkish salmon farming in the Black Sea.