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
Grouper farming is outstripping the growth rates of any other aquaculture species in China, according to recent government figures.
Grouper output totaled 241,000 metric tons (MT) in 2023, according to data compiled for this year’s edition of the China Fishery Statistical Yearbook. This growth is a continuation of a long trend, according to the yearbook, as grouper farming volumes have grown at a compound annual growth rate of 11 percent
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Ireland’s three largest political parties have been courting voters in the seafood industry in the run up to the country’s general election on 29 November by making several promises to strengthen the sector.
Two of the country’s current ruling parties – Fine Gael and Fianna Fail – have promised the industry a dedicated minister of state for fisheries if elected, while the Sinn Fein party has promised to institute a
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Venture capital companies have been eager to invest in salmon aquaculture technology lately, especially as the industry has consistent growth projections, according to Carl-Emil Kjolas Johannessen.
Johannessen, an investment banker at Oslo, Norway-based Pareto Securities, spoke recently at IFFO - The Marine Ingredients Organization’s annual meeting in Lisbon, Portugal, where he said investors have been looking closely at opportunities to
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Chinese officials signed protocol agreements with a few representatives of African markets during this year’s Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, granting African seafood exporters access to the Chinese market even as data from Chinese customs shows the volume and value of the country’s seafood imports dropped over the first eight months of the year.
China imported just over 3 million metric tons of seafood products over the first
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Increased debt loads carried by governments around the world are resulting in the need for private sector investments to fund better management of global fish stocks, according to Jim Cannon.
Speaking at the IFFO - The Marine Ingredients Organization’s 2024 annual conference in Lisbon, Portugal, Cannon – who is the head of the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, a Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.A.-based nonprofit that aims to ensure healthy
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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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