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
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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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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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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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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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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A Chinese distant-water fishing company has made a HKD 5.8 million (USD 739,000, EUR 628,000) payment to preempt an upcoming court ruling on whether to wind the company up.
Fishing company China Ocean Group Development made the payment after an arbitration court in Hong Kong made a ruling last year in favor of a government-owned conglomerate that purchased bonds in the firm. The payment covers legal and other fees incurred in the arbitration
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Irish aquaculture companies are waiting up to six years to get their licenses renewed, mainly due to a shortage of ecologists conducting mandatory assessments.
Michael Mulloy, a member of the country’s Aquaculture Licenses Appeal Board (ALAB), recently told the Irish parliament’s freshly established fisheries committee that the 295 outstanding applications for either new licenses or renewals are severely delayed.
To alleviate
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Singaporean aquaculture firm Singapore Crawfish has opened a hatchery in Bhutan, completing the first phase of a large expansion project aimed at enhancing food security and reducing waste in the mountainous South Asian nation.
Desmond Chow, the CEO of Singapore Crawfish, told SeafoodSource that the firm’s new state-of-the-art Red Claw Crawfish Hatchery, situated in the Himalayan highlands, has started production.
“We are
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In a recently released financial report filed to the Singaporean stock exchange, restaurant operator Jumbo Group, which owns restaurants across Asia, including over 20 outlets of Jumbo Seafood, announced its revenue fell 10.6 percent year over year in the six months to the end of March 2025.
The company attributed the drop in the first half of its 2025 fiscal year to higher raw material prices, as well as consumer anxiety caused by global trade
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