April 3, 2026 — The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has launched a five-year research project that will use nuclear and related technologies to strengthen participating countries’ ability to detect and prevent seafood fraud.
According to IAEA, seafood consumption per capita has nearly doubled since the 1960s and is projected to double again by 2050, increasing the need to reduce seafood fraud now and protect fair trade practices.
July 3, 2025 — The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has launched a four-year coordinated research project to study microplastics in seafood.
Microplastics – microscopic pieces of plastic waste from a range of sources – have been a significant topic for the seafood industry as more research emerges about the near ubiquitous presence of the form of pollution in food. Studies have found microplastics in a range of seafood products, including a study that found contaminants in oysters in the eastern Andaman Sea of Myanmar and another that found microplastics in nearly all tested seafood samples on the U.S. West Coast.
February 2, 2021 — As the tenth anniversary of the East Japan earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster approaches, fishery cooperatives in Fukushima Prefecture are making progress toward recovery by reopening damaged port cargo handling and auction buildings and sales outlets – even as new releases of cooling water from the crippled reactor appear imminent.
The 11 March, 2011, disaster resulted in fishing being banned in the prefecture due to radioactivity. Since then, the national government, in cooperation with the prefectural governments and fisheries cooperatives, has monitored radioactive materials in fish and fishery products. In trial fishing, the number of samples in which radioactive materials above the standard limits were detected decreased over time, and in marine species – for four years after June 2015 – there were no samples collected in Fukushima that exceeded the standard. A study performed in 2017 found that Fukushima Daiichi radiation was no longer a danger to seafood-eaters.