Saving Seafood

Seafood industry applauds Trump’s new executive order, while some groups cry foul

May 8, 2020 — An executive order issued on 7 April by U.S. President Donald Trump containing a number of new mandates intended to enhance the competitiveness of the U.S. seafood has drawn widespread praise from the industry, and has been derided by some environmentalists and fishing groups.

The new executive order contains an array of recommendations for wild-caught fisheries, and an extensive set of new tasks for multiple government administrations intended to expand the nation’s aquaculture. The new changes are devoted to removing barriers to permitting, improving regulatory transparency, and establishing new “Aquaculture Opportunity Areas.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

SIMP helping to drive seafood’s blockchain moment

June 24, 2019 — It’s not your imagination. The seafood industry is talking a lot more than usual about Bitcoin these days.

But don’t worry. There’s no effort afoot to launch a new form of seafood-themed cryptocurrency — though “Fishscales” would have a nice ring to it.

Rather, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s implementation of its new Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP) requirements is helping to drive a great deal of interest in blockchain, the digital technology that underlies Bitcoin, Sean O’Scannlain, the president and CEO of Fortune Fish & Gourmet, told Undercurrent News in a telephone interview this week.

Besides running one of the US’ largest seafood wholesalers, O’Scannlain is also chairman of the Seafood Industry Research Fund (SIRF), a 55-year-old group that has provided almost $4 million in grants to help create about 400 research papers, all publicly available. Roughly a week ago, the National Fisheries Institute (NFI) announced that SIRF would be launching a pilot aimed at enabling the industry to better use blockchain, increasing transparency, optimizing supply chain processes and combating fraud.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News