Russian firm to produce caviar in northwestern Argentina

Buenos Aires, Mar 9 (EFE).- A Russian-owned company in the coming weeks will begin production of caviar in the northwestern Argentine province of La Rioja, a spokesman for the regional government told Efe on Tuesday.

Esturiones & Caviar SA signed a 15-year concession contract with the government of La Rioja whereby it will operate the fish farming plant in the town of Anillaco, where it will raise sturgeon for their precious eggs - caviar - and create 25 local jobs.

This will be the second caviar production operation in Latin America, after the largest sturgeon farm in the world opened in Uruguay in 2007.

The company predicts that in eight years, after going through the proper preparation cycles, it will achieve an annual production of 10 tons of caviar, President Facundo Fredes said in a press release.

He also said that the Anillaco plant will begin operating within 15 days and that the sturgeon eggs will arrive from Russia in about a month.

The plant will also serve as a laboratory for the study of sturgeon, a species that is in danger of extinction, and the data gathered at the plant will be analyzed by a Russian biological institute.

As governor of La Rioja in the 1980s, future Argentine President Carlos Menem pushed for the construction of the fish farming center in Anillaco, his birthplace.

However, the plant never managed to achieve its production goals, changed ownership repeatedly and ultimately was abandoned, for all practical purposes.

Ninety percent of the world sturgeon catch is made in the Caspian Sea, where fewer and fewer of the fish are being caught ever since it was put on the endangered species list.