Saving Seafood

A closer look at the environmental costs of food

June 13, 2018 — The relationship between food and environment is one of the most important conservation issues in the anthropocene. Currently, agriculture uses 38% of the world’s land and accounts for over 90% of freshwater use. Farming and food production has been, and continues to be, the largest driver of habitat and biodiversity loss on the planet.

But, not all foods have the same environmental cost. Comparing and quantifying environmental impacts of different foods is important to guide agricultural policy and empower consumer choice. A paper published today is the most comprehensive comparison of the environmental impacts of meat and fish production—its findings can better inform personal food choices and, hopefully, will help decision-makers devise better food policies that account for environmental cost. Lead author of the study, Ray Hilborn said, “I think this is one of the most important things I’ve ever done…Policymakers need to be able to say, ‘There are certain food production types we need to encourage, and others we should discourage.’”

The paper used 148 different life-cycle assessment papers (also know as “cradle-to-grave” analysis) to look at environmental impacts associated with every aspect of animal protein as food. Researchers quantified 4 different kinds of major environmental impacts caused by food production: (1) electricity/energy use; (2) greenhouse gas emissions; (3) potential for nutrient runoff—this causes most of the world’s water quality issues; (4) potential to cause air pollution.

By standardizing environmental impacts per 40g/protein produced researchers were able to compare different kinds of animal proteins. Basically, the paper answers the question: what are the environmental costs of producing a hamburger patty’s worth of protein from different animal sources?

Read the full story at Sustainable Fisheries UW

Hundreds of seafood stakeholders heading to Spain to tackle top sustainability issues

June 11, 2018 — Barcelona, Spain will play host to more than 100 speakers and even more attendees from across the sustainable seafood movement for this year’s SeaWeb Seafood Summit, occurring from 18 to 21 June at the Hotel Arts.

Over the course of up to five days, summit speakers and registered attendees – including global representatives from the seafood industry, the conservation community, retail/foodservice, academia, government and the media – will convene to learn, network, and problem solve, said Diversified Communications, which produces the summit in partnership with SeaWeb.

“This year, we’ve expanded interactive formats across more sessions,” said Brenna Hensley, event director for Diversified Communications. “This forum vastly benefits from wide participation and input from diverse stakeholders.”

The educational sessions planned for the summit are formatted as “engagement-driven panels or workshops,” explained Diversified, and aim to unpack and troubleshoot challenging and emerging issues within the seafood sustainability oceanscape.

The event will feature several plenary and panel discussions, including the opening session set to take place on Tuesday, 19 June at 11:15 a.m.: “Is Spain Really as Important as the Global Seafood Sustainability Movement Believes?” During this kickoff plenary, “panelists will examine the key factors that explain and drive the success of the global seafood sustainability movement through the lens of global consumer appetite for mature (whitefish, small shrimps, salmon, cold water crabs) and non-mature (octopus and squid) markets,” Diversified said in a press release.

Such discussions will continue to heat up on Wednesday, 20 June, when the plenary “Building Socially Responsible Seafood Supply Chains Through Worker Voice,” is scheduled to take place. The session will involve a “dynamic, multi-stakeholder “ perspective on the concept of worker voice, covering why worker voice is important and how to incorporate it into seafood supply chains.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Not All Fish Puts You at Risk of Mercury Poisoning

June 7, 2018 — If you’ve ever eaten sushi, you may be familiar with rumors and rumblings about how eating too much can give you mercury poisoning. Pregnant women are typically advised to steer clear of any spicy tuna roll cravings because.

It has to be dangerous to eat too much of a certain kind of fish, right? Well, sort of. Mercury poisoning, and fear of it, is laced with misconceptions, in part because the metal comes in different forms and thus, has different modes of poisoning someone.

Mercury is a natural metal found in the earth, Judith Zelikoff, a professor in NYU’s School of Medicine’s department of environmental medicine, told The Daily Beast. It’s potentially dangerous to ingest because it inhibits inhibits selenoenzymes, which protect the immune system, causing toxicity. Methylmercury is the most common type of organic mercury that is found in the earth and what is commonly in fish that most commonly leads to mercury poisoning. There’s also inorganic mercury, or elemental mercury, that is found in old-school thermometers.

“The problem comes from environmental exposures,” Zelikoff said, pointing to mercury-containing coal combustion as the problem. “So when [coal] is burned and combusted, it gets into the air. Once it’s in the air it falls to the ground, not only to the soil but also to the surface of water and rivers and lakes.

Read the full story at The Daily Beast

MASSACHUSETTS: Selling state’s seafood: Report says ports like Gloucester must take lead

May 25, 2018 — Massachusetts should increase its public commitment and investment in the state’s commercial fishing industry to help foster innovation and partnerships among diverging stakeholders and the private sector, according to a report commissioned by the Seaport Economic Council.

The report, produced by the Urban Harbor Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston and titled “Building the Massachusetts Seafood System,” also recommended that major Bay State fishing ports such as Gloucester commit to a prominent role in growth and redevelopment of the fishing industry.

“It is at the local level where face-to-face information sharing and institutional support typically lead to new technology and product development, new businesses or non-profit programs and ecosystem restoration projects, and where the benefits of cultural and community development are most directly felt,” the report stated.

Lt. Gov. Karen Polito, the chairwoman of the council, traveled to Gloucester on Thursday — along with former Gloucester Mayor Carolyn Kirk, now deputy secretary of housing and development in the Baker administration — to hear the presentation of the final report at City Hall.

The presentation also drew Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll and Gloucester Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken on the dais and some members of the Gloucester City Council and fishing stakeholders in the audience of about two dozen.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

Mediterranean diets boost ‘good’ bacteria in the gut: Eating lots of vegetables, fish and olive oil increases levels by nearly 10%, study finds

April 27, 2018 — Eating a Mediterranean diet boosts ‘good’ bacteria in the gut, new research suggests.

Eating lots of vegetables, fish and olive oil improves good bacteria in the stomach by up to seven per cent compared with a western diet, a study found.

Lead author Dr Hariom Yadav, from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina, said: ‘We have about two billion good and bad bacteria living in our gut.

‘If the bacteria are of a certain type and not properly balanced, our health can suffer.

‘Our study showed that the good bacteria, primarily Lactobacillus, most of which are probiotic, were significantly increased in the Mediterranean-diet group.’

Poor gut bacteria has previously been linked to conditions such as depression and pneumonia.

The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition, used animals to mimic two human diets, as this allowed researchers to carefully monitor and control the nutrients ingested.

Read the full story at the Daily Mail

 

High prices turning Russians off seafood

April 24, 2018 — Russia’s overall catch has been on a consistent rise. In 2010, Russia’s total catch reached 4.2 million metric tons (MT). In 2012, that figure had increased to 4.33 million MT. By 2016, total fisheries were 4.6 million MT, and last year was record-breaking, with totals cresting 4.9 million MT, according to the Russia’s Federal Agency for Fisheries.

Yet paradoxically, the average consumption rate of fish by Russians within the same period has drastically decreased, by more than 50 percent. The decline is linked to sharp increases in prices, which have made seafood unaffordable for many people. The high prices themselves have been caused by a wide range of problems that must be tackled if Russia hopes to see its domestic seafood consumption increase.

Total catch breaks records 

Russia’s higher catch totals over the past several years can be attributed to the integration of Crimea into the Russian Federation in March 2014, as well as by Russia’s subsequent ban on imports from U. S., Australia, Iceland, Norway, and the European Union in August 2014. As a result, the country’s import volume decreased from 1 million MT in 2014 to 450,000 MT in 2016, and Russian fisheries’ production went from a 50 percent share in the domestic market in 2014 to more than 80 percent in 2017.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Massachusetts: Sustaining New England’s Wild Seafood

March 27, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The following was released by the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center:

The New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center and Eating with the Ecosystem presents Sustaining New England’s Wild Seafood on Thursday, April 12th at 6:30 p.m. as part of AHA night.  This naturalist-style lecture about marine ecosystems, how these contribute to seafood production and why it is important to take a whole-system approach to sustaining seafood.  Recipes will be shared.

This program is part of the Center’s look at the issue of sustainability during the month of April.  Admission is free.  The Center is handicap accessible through the parking lot entrance. Free off-street parking available. The Center is located at 38 Bethel Street in New Bedford’s historic downtown.

Eating with the Ecosystem’s mission is to promote a place-based approach to sustaining New England’s wild seafood, through healthy habitats, flourishing food webs, and short, adaptive supply chains. Learn more at www.eatingwiththeecosystem.org.

The New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center is dedicated to preserving and presenting the story of the commercial fishing industry past, present, and future through archives, exhibits, and programs. For more information, please email programs@fishingheritagecenter.org or call (508) 993-8894.

 

Legit Fish is Adding Validity to a Peculiar Part of the Seafood Industry

March 14, 2018 — Certain entrepreneurs have an interest in a particular topic or industry that serves as an underlying theme to their career.

Taking a look at the career of Legit Fish Founder and CEO Michael Carroll, you will see he has been involved with the seafood industry for nearly 30 years. Carroll has worked as a commercial fisherman, in various marketing roles selling cod and haddock to grocery stores, and as a business consultant for seafood-companies.

And now, he is the founder of a seafood-focused tech startup in a city both catered to tech and seafood.

Legit Fish provides an administrative and tracking platform for seafood offloaders and independent fisherman to certify and market their fish as local. The software application replaces the current paper and Excel logistics systems with a cohesive cloud-based system that offers a scalable and unmatched level of traceability in the seafood industry.

The seafood offloader simply inputs the vessel, species, sizes, and relevant harvest information which is automatically transmitted to federal harvest records, inventory, sales, accounting etc. substantially reducing labor and transaction efficiencies. The application verifies the accuracy of the product information against the official government harvest record through proprietary API access and approves the printing of labels.

“Our software is built for traceability and logistics. If you lie on a federal harvest record, there are consequences, therefore we ground our product origin claims on this record. It’s up to us to make sure that the seafood distributors are honest, while still trying to be a business solution,” Carroll said. “With our current business partners, we can authenticate landings in Boston, New Bedford and Gloucester which represents an estimated 70% of the New England Groundfish Fishery and 30% of Atlantic Sea Scallops Fishery.”

Read the full story at VentureFizz

 

Limiting the Spread of Disease in Farmed Salmon

March 14, 2018 — Currents in the ocean spread viruses that are killing large numbers of Norway’s farmed salmon. Where should fish farms be built? And should they all be in use at the same time? Researchers now know more about how to limit the virus problem.

Pancreas disease is a viral infection in farmed salmon that causes major economic losses because it reduces how much the fish grow and increases mortality. When farmed salmon are weakened, they also become more susceptible to other diseases. Pancreas disease (PD) can resolve on its own, but often mortality is high.

Researchers monitored the ocean currents in the Romsdalsfjord and in Nord- Trøndelag county in 2014. Data from the observations have been transferred to a digital model, where researchers then depicted virtual virus particles in order to understand how the disease can spread from one fish farm to another. In addition to threatening fish welfare, every year the disease leads to major losses for Norwegian salmon breeders. A single outbreak can quickly cost a small aquaculture operation more than $1 million.

Ocean currents are one of the most important pathways for the disease, carrying the virus from one fish farm to the next. Planning for where best to locate aquaculture facilities, and knowledge of which facilities to use when combatting the disease, can prevent the spread of the disease, new research from NTNU in Ålesund shows.

Read the full story at Maritime Executive

 

Massachusetts: Seafood expo cut short, still a success

March 14, 2018 — The first casualty of Tuesday’s fierce snowstorm actually came late Monday afternoon, when Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken opted for safety reasons to cut short the city’s presence at the massive Seafood Expo North America at the convention center in South Boston.

“We don’t want any of our people getting hurt trying to come in here to staff our booth or the people coming in to meet with us,” Romeo Theken said even before leaving the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center Monday. “And really, we’ve gotten most of what we wanted to get done.”

Following Monday’s session, the Gloucester contingent, led by Economic Development Director Sal Di Stefano, broke down the city’s booth and hauled everything back to Gloucester.

The third nor’easter of the past fortnight, however, did force the city — again for safety reasons — to cancel its annual Wednesday-after-the-Expo visit to the city by a contingent of largely foreign seafood processors, dealers and fishermen in Boston for the three-day seafood show that features 1,341 exhibitors from 57 countries around the globe. Cumulatively, they occupy 258,360 square feet of exhibition space.

“It’s really for the safety of our guests and out of respect for people who will be involved in snow removal around the city,” Di Stefano said. “The last thing we want to do is put somebody in danger. And you know what? They can always come back.”

The city, he said, made a strong showing in the first two days of the show, capped off Monday by its VIP luncheon tasting that drew 75 into a glassed suite overlooking the sprawling convention floor.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times