Japan's lab-grown eel: A costly endeavor, says expert

Japan announced that it will start selling fully artificially cultivated eels at the end of the month. The price of artificial eel seedlings has been reduced to 1,800 yen per seedling (approximately NT$360). Han Yushan, an eel authority and professor at National Taiwan University's Institute of Fisheries Science, stated that the average price of wild eel seedlings caught in Taiwan this quarter is about 50 NT dollars per seedling, and believes that it will take at least another 5 to 10 years for Japan's artificially cultivated eel seedlings to potentially replace wild eel seedlings.

Every year from November to February is the open season for catching eel seedlings in Taiwan, which is also called "eel gold" by many fishermen. With the Japanese government announcing its success in lowering the price of artificially cultivated eel seedlings and commercializing the sale of fully artificially cultivated eels at the end of the month, and given that Taiwan's main eel export market is Japan, according to statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture, Taiwan exported 347 tons of eels last year, of which 306 tons were exported to Japan.

Han Yushan pointed out that currently only Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan have successfully developed artificial eel seedling cultivation technology. Taiwan successfully cultivated artificial eel seedlings in 2004. He stated that technology is not the problem; the real difficulty lies in the excessively high cost of cultivating artificial eel seedlings and the overly complex farming equipment. He noted that although Japan claims the price of artificial eel seedlings has dropped from an initial 1 million yen per seedling (about NT$200,000) to 1,800 yen, based on his understanding, Japan's artificially cultivated seedlings are "completely sold at a loss" and difficult to mass-produce. If R&D and equipment costs are factored in, he estimates the actual price per seedling should be increased by another "zero."

Although the cost of artificially cultivated eel seedlings is high, the advantage is controllable production volume and timing. However, the price is significantly higher than wild eel seedlings. Han Yushan pointed out that in this quarter (from November 2025 to the end of February this year), the price of wild eel seedlings in Taiwan ranged from about NT$200 per seedling at the beginning of the season to as low as NT$5 at the end of the season, with an average price of about NT$30 to NT$50 per wild seedling. In addition, the cultivation period for artificial eel seedlings lasts 6 months to 1 year. After stocking, there are still problems such as uneven growth and varying sizes that need to be overcome. He believes that for Japan's artificially cultivated eel seedlings to replace wild eel seedlings, the price must be lowered to below NT$50 per seedling.

"For artificial eel seedlings to completely replace wild catches, at the most optimistic, most optimistic estimate, it will take at least another 5 to 10 years," Han Yushan said. Taiwan is currently also working hard to reduce the cost of artificial eel seedling reproduction. He believes that the key to the future eel industry lies among Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea, and which country can truly reduce reproduction costs and improve quality in the race for artificial eel seedling reproduction. Taiwan is currently working hard, but has a chance.