Mark Godfrey

Contributing Editor

Mark Godfrey is an Irish journalist covering the agriculture and fisheries sectors in Asia, with a focus on China. Proficient in Mandarin, he has frequently traveled across China's fisheries and aquaculture regions and learned the inner workings of China's corporate world during a nearly three-year stint at the Financial Times' “China Confidential” publication. He has also reported widely across Southeast Asia and the former Soviet Union. He has educational certificates in agriculture and food science, as well as Mandarin.


Author Archive

Published on
August 11, 2025

The closure of the Antarctic krill fishing season after the reaching of a catch limit of 620,000 metric tons (MT), is “not the crisis that some might suggest” according to leading krill catching firm Aker QRILL.

The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) closed the Antarctic krill fishery for the season after fishing companies triggered the 620,000 MT catch limit designedto prevent

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Published on
August 11, 2025
Only six work permits have been issued in the year since Ireland introduced a new work permit scheme for migrant fishers working aboard Irish owned trawlers. Ireland introduced the new scheme in 2024 after its previous scheme, the atypical work permit scheme introduced in 2016, was scrapped in… Read More
Published on
August 7, 2025

The Zhangzhou fishing port in the southern Chinese province of Fujian is offering a CNY 40 million (USD 5.6 million, EUR 4.8 million) subsidy through the municipal government that will be put toward purchasing new Antarctic krill-fishing vessels as part of a support package to help expand the local distant-water fleet.

The payments also include a “one-off reward” of CNY 100,000 (USD 14,000, EUR 12,000) per vessel to any fishing

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Published on
August 6, 2025
A recent conference held in Qingdao, China, brought together Chinese and Indonesian representatives from marine science research institutions, fisheries organizations, and more to discuss how the two nations can better collaborate, particularly when it comes to mariculture… Read More
Published on
August 6, 2025

Ireland has instituted a phased ban on industrial fishing in the nation’s inshore waters that will be fully effective from October 2026 onward.

Starting this October, industrial trawlers 18 meters or more in length will need a permit to fish for sprat in Ireland’s inshore waters and will be subject to a quota limit of 2,000 metric tons. Then, next October, all trawling activity by large fishing vessels will be banned from fishing in

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Published on
August 5, 2025

U.S. tariffs on Southeast Asian nations like Vietnam have helped to cushion the impact of trade disruptions on Chinese processors and exporters, according to Landy Chow, the general manager of seafood exporter Siam Canadian’s Chinese office.

The U.S. recently instituted 20 percent tariffs on Vietnamese goods, down from the 42 percent it was initially threatened with. Chinese seafood, meanwhile, faces 30 percent tariffs, as well as 25

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Published on
August 4, 2025

Chinese fishery officials have developed a proposal for establishing better cooperation with South American nations to more effectively manage global squid resources.

The proposal, dubbed the “Shanghai Proposal for the Sustainable Development of Global Squid Fisheries,” aims to provide “a basis for formulating scientific and reasonable resource management measures” and “avoid overfishing of squid resources,”

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Published on
July 31, 2025

More than 7,500 people have backed an aquaculture appeal against a proposed mussel farm near the Irish town of Kinsale, marking what campaigners are saying is the largest such appeal the country has ever seen.

Woodstown Bay Shellfish received a license for a 23-hectare bottom-culture mussel farm in May, but protestors have claimed that the license was awarded without any environmental impact assessment having taken place.

Michael Collins, a

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Published on
July 30, 2025

Research conducted by the University of Oxford claims that the rapid expansion of fish farms in the Mediterranean Sea is killing wide swaths of Posidonia oceanica, a seagrass that’s endemic to the Mediterranean and vital to biodiversity and carbon sequestration in the region.

The study focused on the waters around the Greek island of Poros, which hosts both current aquaculture operations and is the planned site for future farms, mainly

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Published on
July 29, 2025

Chinese producers of tilapia are trying to take advantage of ongoing trade volatility to challenge the stranglehold that cheaper imported pangasius has in China, especially as U.S. tariffs have threatened their top export market.

Within the past few years, imported pangasius has become a staple menu item at such value-based chains as Tai Er and Yu Ni Zai Yiqi, which have stores both in China and across Asia.

Similarly, Chinese fast food

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