Saving Seafood

Fishing resumes after Iceland strike ends, but damage has been done

February 23, 2017 — Heavy fishing has been reported in the cod and capelin grounds off of Iceland following the end of a labor strike that lasted more than two months.

A close vote in the early morning hours of Saturday, 18 February, resulted in several fishermen’s unions coming to an agreement with Fisheries Iceland, which represents the country’s commercial sector. The deal, which tackled a number of issues but particularly focused on falling pay for fishermen, was approved with 52.4 percent of the vote, with 53.7 percent of voters participating, according to the Iceland Review.

Iceland’s fleet wasted little time setting sail, with some boats leaving port Saturday evening and the remainder heading out on Sunday, 19 February. Fishing was excellent for HB Grandi, with both its Venus and Vikingur quickly catching their holds full of capelin, the company said. But HB Grandi, which controls 18 percent of Iceland’s capelin quota, only has a few days to catch as much of its 33,423-metric-ton quota before the season ends. Garðar Svavarsson, manager of HB Grandi’s pelagic division, said it would be tight.

“It’s clear that we are going to have our hands full for the next few weeks to catch the company’s quotas, but we’re confident that we can do it,’” he said in a blog post on the company website.

Svavarsson said the strike had hurt some markets, but that roe prices in Japan were currently high and that most of its product would be sourced for that market.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Cultivated Scallops Populations Develop Distinct Genetic Structure

February 15, 2017 — The scallop is one of the largest edible molluscs, and gourmets consider it to be a great delicacy. To meet this demand, the fishing industry cultivates these shellfish in coastal aquafarms. In a new analysis, behavioural ecologists at Bielefeld University have confirmed that cultivated scallops developed their own genetic structure that differs from that of natural scallops.

The biologists studied a total of nine populations of scallops (Pecten maximus) along the coast of Northern Ireland. They are presenting their results this Wednesday (8.2.2017) in the research journal Royal Society Open Science.

“Of the nine scallop populations studied, only one shows a marked genetic difference from the others and that is the artificially cultivated type,” reports Joseph I. Hoffman, head of the Molecular Behavioural Ecology research group. New breeds are cultivated in, for example, mesh cages in coastal waters. Now and then, young scallops escape through the mesh and are thereby able to impact on natural populations. Biologists use the term population to describe a group of organisms of one species that live together in one area and are linked together genetically through reproduction over successive generations.

Read the full story at The Fish Site

Norway’s Per Sandberg provides post-Brexit insight for the seafood sector

February 6, 2017 — Britain’s seafood industry will be radically transformed once it uncouples from the EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), with much more emphasis placed on establishing management agreements and eradicating trade barriers, according to Per Sandberg, the Norwegian Minister of Fisheries.

Sandberg, who has now held the minister position for 30 months, was in London to discuss his country’s fisheries management with delegates at a new whitefish conference organized by the Norwegian Seafood Council (NSC). In his speech, he shared tales of his experiences working alongside the CFP from the perspective of being a non-E.U. member state.

“Being outside the CFP has naturally had an effect on how fisheries management has developed in Norway,” he said. “Although we have a good record of cooperation with the EU, being outside opens the door to more adaptive fisheries management. For instance, if we find that a measure is not having a desired effect, we can just change it without lengthy procedures. This makes our decision making process simpler and more transparent.”

Sandburg also addressed Brexit and how it will affect Norway.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource.com

Could a Partnership Born of Fish 2.0 Become the Red Bull of Seafood?

January 9, 2017 — There’s a global divide at the heart of the seafood industry: the businesses that most need new technologies are often continents away from the businesses creating them.

Small-scale seafood operations in Asia, Latin America, and Africa catch and farm most of the seafood we eat. Startups in the U.S., Canada, and Europe are developing most of the technologies that promise to improve logistics, traceability, fish feeds, and aquaculture production. But distance and limited resources mean these businesses rarely meet. Bridging this divide is an essential step toward both healthy oceans and a healthy, equitable food supply.

That’s one reason we open Fish 2.0 to a diverse range of seafood enterprises from around the world. The Fish 2.0 competition process not only helps ventures improve individually but builds trust and gives technology and product innovators the chance to find and connect with investors as well as other fishing businesses, seafood farmers, and technology creators. Finalists gain insights into parts of the supply chain previously hidden from them and are able to form relationships with like-minded entrepreneurs they otherwise would not have met. The result is new business partnerships that offer unique growth opportunities for investors, as well as solutions to the seafood industry’s most difficult problems.

Aquaculture innovators click

My favorite recent example is the new joint venture between 2015 Canadian finalist and track winner SabrTech and Thailand based runner-up Green Innovative Biotechnology (GIB). SabrTech’s RiverBox system reduces pollution from farm runoff and grows an algae-based feed from the captured wastewater. Bangkok-based GIB has developed a feed supplement that boosts the immune systems of farm-raised fish and shrimp, leading to higher growth rates, greater resistance to diseases such as early mortality syndrome, and lower feed costs. Both technologies solve aquaculture production and cost issues using naturally derived solutions.

Mather Carscallen, president and CEO of SabrTech, and Karsidete Teeranitayatarn, chief innovation officer of GIB, met during the pitch practice session for the Fish 2.0 finals at Stanford University last fall.  Mather helped Karsidete polish his delivery, and the two learned enough about each other to want to stay in touch.

Read the full story at National Geographic

Retailers, suppliers call on Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission for emergency tuna management

November 29, 2016 — European and American tuna suppliers and retailers have called for new interim rules governing the sustainable fishing of Western and Central Pacific tuna stocks.

The group says the interim rules are needed “as quickly as possible”, due to the failure to reach a comprehensive regulatory settlement agreed by country-members of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC), which “allows unsustainable fishing to continue”.

Interim targets should be in place within the next 12 months, read the letter addressed to the WCPFC – which will meet next week in Fiji — with targets including limit and reference points for all target tuna stocks and key by-catch species where these are not currently in place.

Signatories to the letter, including retail giants Target, WM Morrison Supermarkets and Aldi Sud, note that finding a comprehensive fisheries management system is a “time-consuming and complex undertaking”.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Eel migration study tells ‘romantic’ tale

October 6, 2016 — Scientists are a step closer to solving the mystery of one of the great animal migrations.

Each autumn, eels leave European rivers to travel across the Atlantic Ocean to breed for a single time, then die.

Tagging studies show that the fish swim more than 3,000 miles (4,800 km) to the Sargasso Sea.

But, rather than one mass spawning in the spring – an idea held for a century – their arrival is staggered, UK researchers say.

“Eel migration is a rather romantic tale,” said lead researcher David Righton, head of the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) in Lowestoft.

“Eels only spawn once in their lifetime and then they die, so they’re making this final journey of their life, towards the Sargasso Sea, to meet their life’s goals, if you like.

“And so the fact that we’ve got a little bit of insight into that – but we’ve also got some new questions about how eels tackle that really fundamental problem of meeting that life goal – is really, really fascinating.”

Read the full story at the BBC

Majority of US Seafood Producers Call to Stop Undermining Magnuson with End Run for Marine Monuments

September 13, 2016 — WASHINGTON — SEAFOOD NEWS — The US has one of the most highly successful systems for managing living marine resources in the world.  Under the Magnuson Act, stakeholders come together to determine fisheries management policy, guided by the best available science.  The result has been a huge rebuilding of US fish stocks, and the protection of essential habitat.  Many tradeoffs have been made to create closed areas, and to preserve fishing rights where coastal conditions support them.

The keys to this success are first, the decision process is completely open and transparent.  Every argument and decision is made in open forums, and according to the best available science.  This limits the ability to use fisheries resources to score political points.

Both Canada and Europe’s fisheries suffered greatly as governments for years abused their authority by trading fishing privileges for other political favors; with the result that these stocks have been significantly overfished. Only in the last few years has this process begun to be reversed.

Use of the Antiquities Act to create marine monuments, although legal, makes an end run around both state and federal management systems, and in short trades monument designations, made without public review,  for political gain.

Today, in advance of the “Our Oceans” conference being held later this week at the State Department, the National Coalition for Fishing Communities (NCFC) delivered a letter to the White House calling on the President to refrain from designating new marine monuments under the Antiquities Act. Copies of the letter were also delivered to the offices of Senators representing the states of the signers. (Letter)

The letter has over 900 fishing industry signers and is supported by 35 fishing organizations that together represent a significant majority of domestic seafood producers.  It urges the President to conserve marine resources through the federal fisheries management process established by the bipartisan Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Management Act (MSA).

“The federal fisheries management process is among the most effective systems for managing living marine resources in the world,” the letter states. “The misuse of the Antiquities Act to create a marine monument is a repudiation of the past and ongoing efforts of almost everyone involved to continue to make Magnuson-Stevens management even more effective.”

The NCFC members join an ever-growing list of fishing organizations and individuals opposing new ocean monuments via use of the Antiquities Act. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the Council Coordination Committee, and over two dozen individual fish and seafood industry trade organizations have previously written to the White House asking for the MSA continue to guide fisheries management.

Mayors from major East and West coast ports have previously expressed their concerns with monument designations in letters to the White House. NCFC members have also spoke out in opposition to designating a monument off the coast of New England, which would hurt the valuable red crab, swordfish, tuna, and offshore lobster fisheries.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

OMB Has Been Sitting on USDA Organic Aquaculture Standards for Nearly a Year

August 17, 2016 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Get that organic birthday cake ready! The Agriculture Department’s proposed organic aquaculture standards will hit one year under White House Office of Management and Budget review on Wednesday, double the time officials are supposed to take on the interagency review process. If it’s ever released, the rule will set the first ever standards for the cultivation and production of organic fish and other seafood. Europe and Canada already have organic aquaculture standards, and some other groups have started offering their own standards as the USDA has floundered moving forward.

Why it’s stuck at OMB is unclear. A USDA spokesman tells MA that there is no news on when the rule will be released or what the holdup is, and the White House did not return a request for comment. However, George Lockwood, who chaired an aquaculture taskforce for the National Organic Standards Board, tells MA he thinks the administration is leaning toward only allowing closed-loop systems, such as raising fish in land-based tanks, possibly overriding the recommendations from the NOSB. Such systems often need expensive tanks and other infrastrastructure and aren’t appropriate for all species, Lockwood says, adding that the standards should instead allow a variety of fishing methods. White House and USDA officials asked repeatedly about closed-loop and recirculating systems at an OMB meeting in October, “questions that in retrospect were tipping their hand,” he says.

The delay at OMB is just the continuation of what has been a “tortured” process, says Patty Lovera, assistant director of the advocacy group Food and Water Watch. Given that the organic program was designed for things grown on land, where inputs can largely be controlled, figuring out how best to handle organic aquaculture, where, for example, contaminants can move freely through water, has been difficult. “I think the very slow pace of it shows it’s a tough one to wrap your hands around,” she says.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

From Ocean to Plate: Ensuring Traceable Supply Chain in the Seafood Industry

May 18, 2016 — In 2013, the ‘horsemeat scandal’ sent tremors through the European food industry. The fraudulent replacement of beef with cheaper equine alternatives in burgers and convenience food left consumers and retailers reeling, alarmed that they had fallen victim to the largest food fraud in decades.

The scandal not only highlighted the shortcuts being made by food manufacturers in their attempts to compete for the lowest price, it emphasized the complexity of global food supply chains and the challenges in monitoring every step. Almost overnight, the importance of traceability—the ability to track any food through all stages of production, processing and distribution—became high on public and political agendas.

‘Food scandals’ can leave consumers feeling duped, misled and distrustful of retailers and brands. They can also lead to people eating foods that violate their religious or moral values; or worse still   have impacts on their health.

Recognizing the negative impacts of incorrect labelling, governments around the world have responded. The Food Standards Agency in the UK, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the European Food Safety Authority and Food Standards Australia New Zealand, to name a few, commit extensive resources to ensuring the safety and correct labelling of our food. But the problem persists—and responsibility is often laid at the feet of food suppliers.

Read the full story at Food Safety Magazine

UN Agency Puts Fast-growing Fish Trade on the ‘Sustainability’ Menu

February 22, 2016 — Top fishery officials are gathering in Morocco this week to discuss sustainable trade practices in a $144 billion industry that provides developing countries with more export revenue than meat, tobacco, rice and sugar combined.

Lower-income nations’ exports of fish and fishery products reached $78 billion in 2014, more than triple the value of global rice exports, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

“Sustainably serving those lucrative markets is of critical importance to developing countries, where most fish are produced, whether caught in the wild or grown in cages or farm ponds,” the agency’s news release says.

The biennial high-level meeting of FAO’s Sub-Committee on Fish Trade, being held in Agadir through Friday, 26 February, has drawn delegations of fisheries ministries from more than 50 countries to discuss emerging governance needs of the fisheries sector.

“Trade in fish is much more important than people think, both in absolute and relative terms,” said Audun Lem, Deputy-Director in FAO’s Fisheries and Aquaculture Policy and Resources Division, who serves as Secretary of the meeting.

Dialogues will help FAO, its member countries and industry representatives understand new trends, opportunities and challenges in the fishing sector, fostering the development of strategies that can “best position developing countries to develop their fisheries sectors in a sustainable manner and to maximize their economic benefit from the growth we expect to witness,” Mr. Lem said. Traceability

Read the full story at Bloomberg Business