Ale, brass brands and... caviar? Wakefield to farm fine delicacy

Wakefield is often associated with brass bands, rugby league and pints of HB Clark's Classic Blonde real ale, but it could soon become renowned for its caviar.

The West Yorkshire town is to become the caviar capital of Britain with plans to transform a 14-hectare site of wasteland in Caldervale into a fish farm that will produce high-quality caviar.

Yorkshire Water has approved the scheme after being approached by the Able Partnership Ltd, which provides work for disadvantaged people and those recovering from drug abuse. Terry Rutter, the project manager of the Able Project in Caldervale, said: "An application for planning permission is currently with Wakefield Metropolitan District Council and we are expecting to get the go ahead by the second week in January.

"As soon as we are granted planning permission, we can start the preparation of the area, including site clearance, erecting the tanks and installation of the sturgeon. We are weeks away from beginning to establish a commercial-sized fish farm on the site."

The project was launched in 1997 when the partnership started looking at reducing waste. It began by turning cardboard into horse bedding, which was eventually adapted to provide a compost used to feed worms.

The partnership is now planning to import Siberian sturgeon from France, which will feed on the worms.

In about three years some of the fish will have reached a marketable size and will be sold to restaurants and hotels. In about five years the fish will have grown to about four feet in length and weigh 22lb. At this time they will also be mature enough to produce caviar, Mr Rutter said, with each fish producing about 10 per cent of its weight in eggs.

And it could be a lucrative business; this type of caviar sells at £1 per gram.

Sturgeon are descendants of a group of fish with fossil records that date back 100 million years. The fish can grow up to 10ft and weigh more than 300lb. At the beginning of the 20th century, many sturgeon weighing 1,000lb or more were caught, but by the 1920s sturgeon of that size were no longer found.

In recent years, environmentalists have been warning that the fishing industry and poaching by the Russian Mafia have brought some species of sturgeon, including the beluga, to the brink of extinction in its last stronghold, the Caspian Sea. In 1996 the sturgeon was placed on the world's Red List of threatened species after a study of the fish was conducted by the Sturgeon Specialist Group, chaired by Dr Vadim Berstein, in the Caspian Sea and the Volga basin. The study found that the fish could be commercially extinct within three years.

But commercial fishing of the sturgeon was stopped in Russia yesterday as a senior official confirmed that the country has joined a self-imposed moratorium of Caspian states to clamp down on the illegal caviar trade.

The high cost and increasing rarity of Caspian caviar has resulted in the production of many other varieties of high-quality caviar. Sturgeon-farming projects have been started in the south of France and there are five types of American sturgeon. More than 50 young people will be employed at the Caldervale site, which will be built by community service workers. Disadvantaged young people have been involved in the project from the beginning.

Mr Rutter said: "This is a project that gives us the opportunity to provide employment and training to young people to prepare them for employment in the future. The other aspect of the project is that it will result in an environmental awareness centre for people and children in the district that will fit into the national curriculum."

Willow and hazel trees are to be planted for coppicing on a eight-hectare site and burnt as fuel for heating the water in the fish tanks. A three-kilometre trail through the woodland is also planned and the site will be able to demonstrate recycling, renewable energy, food production, nature studies, ecology and biology.

The Able project, which is a partnership between the Green Business Network, Eastern Wakefield Primary Care Trust, and Turning Point, will be funded by several grants, including one already secured from the Coalfield Regeneration Trust.