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
February 10, 2026
For more than a decade, water management solutions firm Aquatic Harvesting has conducted environmental assessments and provided ecological monitoring, erosion prevention, and water-based project management services aimed at improving Ireland’s rivers, lakes, wetlands, and canals.
While out on the water completing such tasks as removing invasive plant species, Aquatic Harvesting team members began to notice that many Irish riverbeds were… Read More
Published on
February 5, 2026
A fund set up by the World Trade Organization (WTO) to help developing countries adapt to an agreement on curbing harmful fishing subsidies has handed out nearly USD 3 million (EUR 2.54 million) in its first tranche of grants.
The grants aim to help nations meet the stipulations of a deal originally signed by WTO members in 2022 to prohibit global subsidies that support vessels engaging in illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing… Read More
Published on
February 3, 2026
Pakistan has signaled that it wants to add more seafood processing capacity in order to reduce its reliance on Chinese factories.
Muhammad Zafar Kundi, chair of the Pakistan Fisheries Exporters Association, told SeafoodSource that the South Asian nation aims to meet the evolving demands of key markets like the E.U. itself, instead of shipping a lot of its raw materials to China where value is added in upgraded processing facilities and then… Read More
Published on
January 28, 2026
A recent study published in Royal Society Open Science has posited that there is a “general reluctance” among consumers to purchase fish raised on a diet of insect-based feed, as they find them “less appetizing.”
The study, conducted by experts from the National University of Singapore, the Queensland University of Technology, and Chungnam National University, claims to be the “first to examine consumer preferences for packaged fish… Read More
Published on
January 23, 2026
The Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) has confirmed that its certification program is set to expire in China in 2027, requiring several companies certified under the standard to pivot within the next year.
The ASC began phasing out operations in China in March 2024 and closed its office in the country around that time.
“ASC has undertaken a strategic business review of internal operations and of current and future operational regions and… Read More
Published on
January 21, 2026
Canada recently announced it struck a deal with China to cut tariffs on seafood products like lobster and crab, starting 1 March and lasting through the end of the year.
While the cancellation of the 25 percent tariff Canadian seafood has faced since March 2025 is likely to benefit exports to China, some experts have stated that Canadian seafood is still set to face many hurdles toward recovering sales in the Asian market.
Fan Xubing, the CEO of… Read More
Published on
January 15, 2026
Japan has promised to send drones to Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, and Uruguay so they can better track vessels entering their exclusive economic zones (EEZs) that may be conducting illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing activities.
The move, which targets, among other vessels, China’s sprawling distant-water fleet off the South American coast, provides much-needed resources to a region that has struggled at times to properly combat… Read More
Published on
January 14, 2026
In a recently published report on the Chinese seafood market, London, U.K.-based market research firm Euromonitor International found that consumption of high-end, premium species has held strong in the country, but consumer anxiety over the state of both the domestic and global economies has cratered the sales of mid-priced seafood.
But, with many consumers aiming to save money, sales of low-priced, cheaper species have spiked.
“In terms of… Read More
Published on
January 12, 2026
The World Trade Organization (WTO) has appointed Guyana Ambassador Leslie Ramsammy as the new chair of ongoing negotiations aiming to eliminate subsidies that lead to overcapacity and overfishing in global fishing fleets.
The negotiations Ramsammy now leads aim to strengthen a 2022 agreement that prohibits global subsidies supporting vessels engaging in illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing activities, fishing overfished stocks, and… Read More
Published on
January 12, 2026
Ireland’s seafood exports rose 22 percent by volume and 9 percent by value in 2025 to EUR 635 million (USD 739 million), according to the country’s food promotion agency Bord Bia.
Helping Ireland secure that increase was the fact that the value of Irish shellfish exports to China doubled in 2025.
China’s purchases of Irish shellfish totaled around EUR 35 million (USD 40.7 million) last year and comprised nearly one-fifth of Ireland’s… Read More
