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
Chinese officials recently met in Beijing with representatives from the West African country of Sierra Leone to discuss opportunities for collaboration between the two nations.
Among other meetings, Han Jun, secretary of the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, met with Sierra Leone’s Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources Princess Dugba.
The meeting marked a continuation of close cooperation between China and Sierra
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Nina Carberry, who was elected as an Irish representative to the E.U. Parliament over the summer and now sits on the parliament’s trade committee, wants to review the U.K.-E.U. Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) to ensure greater access for Irish trawlers in British waters.
The TCA was signed after Brexit, and entered into force on 1 January 2021. The U.K. and E.U. later concluded negotiations in June 2021 over catch limits for jointly
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Irish oyster producers are suffering from low prices in a few key markets, as well as high input costs, according to Lee Hunter, the CEO of Oisirí Oileán Cróine Teoranta, which farms oysters in the western Irish county of Donegal.
“Anyone selling into the Asian market is taking a 10 to 20 percent price cut while still sending similar amounts,” Hunter said.
Hunter said that Irish oysters shipped to France
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Members of China’s seafood industry aren’t expecting the reelection of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency to have a profound impact on their sector, given the impact already felt during the president-elect’s prior administration.
During Trump’s first term as president, he implemented tariffs on Chinese goods beginning in 2018, which began at 10 percent for some goods and ultimately escalated to a wider scope of products
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Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, a Canadian government agency tasked with promoting food exports, is projecting long-term growth in seafood demand from China driven by improved logistics and the build out of e-commerce capabilities that will make it easier to achieve market penetration in China’s smaller cities and rural areas.
A recent report published by the agency points to the fact that annual per-capita seafood consumption is as low
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The profitability of the Mediterranean aquaculture sector has improved considerably, and producers of sea bass and sea bream in the region can expect higher prices in 2025 due to lower costs and tighter supply, according to Nikos Papaioannou, the chairman of Greece-based aquafeed and fish nutrition firm IRIDA Group, who spoke recently at the IFFO’s 2024 annual conference in Lisbon, Portugal.
Though this marks positive news for the sector,
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Chinese seafood firm Shanghai Hecheng Food, which also operates under the name Hi-Chain, has launched two new seafood brands on a bet that that demand for premium seafood products will steady in China.
Hecheng used the occasion of the World Seafood Shanghai (SIFSE) exposition to launch the Norway Fishing Ground brand alongside representatives from Norcod, its supplier for the products. Norcod operates a commercial-scale cod farm located
… Read More“It’s crucial for Fiji” – UN Ambassador for Fiji Luke Daunivalu comments on WTO subsidy negotiations
Negotiators have been working for over a year to secure a strengthened World Trade Organization (WTO) deal on ending harmful fishery subsidies.
Luke Daunivalu is the Fijian ambassador to the United Nations (UN) bodies based in Geneva, Switzerland, including the WTO. He talked to SeafoodSource about how realistic the prospects for a deal are and why he is wary about large nations fulfilling their obligations under a deal if it does reach an
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Chinese distant-water fishing firm Fuzhou Hongdong Pelagic Fishery Co. has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Argentine province of Santa Cruz in a deal that could see the area become a hub for Chinese fishing operations.
According to Argentine media, the deal will see Hongdong invest
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