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
November 20, 2025
The family of a deceased Chinese distant-water fisherman has been awarded CNY 200,000 (USD 28,051, EUR 24,025) by a maritime court in Ningbo, more than two years after his death by suicide aboard a tuna purse-seine vessel in the Pacific Ocean.
The fisherman, surnamed Wang, reportedly suffered from long periods of sea sickness before taking his life in May 2023, when his vessel was near the Cook Islands, which is more than 6,500 miles away from… Read More
Published on
November 19, 2025
Ireland’s fishing industry is calling for an overhaul of the country’s Sea Fisheries Protection Authority (SFPA), claiming the independent statutory body carries out excessive and burdensome investigations into the sector.
The recent bout of backlash comes after a case SFPA brought against an export firm in the country was dismissed out of court due to a lack of evidence.
Killybegs, Ireland-based export firm Sean Ward (Fish Exports) was… Read More
Published on
November 18, 2025
Recent reports have warned that shortages of fishmeal are projected to arise as early as 2028.
Therefore, stakeholders in the global aquaculture and feed sectors are urging markets like the E.U. to remove regulatory barriers for alternative feed options and take an approach akin to markets in Asia, where products like insect feed are growing exponentially.
Leo Wein, the CEO of Singapore-based biotechnology firm Protenga, which uses black soldier… Read More
Published on
November 13, 2025
Chinese shrimp-farming firm Zhanjiang Guolian Aquatic Products has reported another quarter of heavy losses, continuing a long line of disappointing financial periods for the firm.
Over the first three quarters of 2025, the company has reported losses of CNY 800 million (USD 112 million, EUR 97 million) and revenue of CNY 2.58 billion (USD 360 million, EUR 310 million), with the latter metric marking a 14 percent drop year over year.
The latest… Read More
Published on
November 11, 2025
A survey of seafood consumers conducted by the Global Seafood Alliance (GSA), which operates the Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) certification, suggests there is demand for more certified seafood – and a willingness to pay for it – in China.
According to the survey, which went out to over 3,300 consumers across China this summer, 40 percent of Chinese consumers want at least 10 percent of China’s aquaculture output to be certified.… Read More
Published on
November 4, 2025
Key krill fishing and processing firms Aker QRILL Company and Aker BioMarine said they are optimistic member nations of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) are close to a consensus on new fishery measures after the commission met in Hobart, Australia without any significant announcement.
In a joint statement to SeafoodSource, the two companies said “genuine progress” had been made toward… Read More
Published on
October 28, 2025
Joost Pompert, the owner of Falkland Islands-based Georgia Seafood, has claimed that longstanding territorial disputes between Argentina and the U.K. have allowed China’s squid-fishing fleet to overfish in the Southwest Atlantic Ocean.
China’s fleet has been accused of chronic overfishing, as well as committing human rights and marine wildlife abuses, in the Southwest Atlantic for years, and a recent Environmental Justice Foundation report… Read More
Published on
October 23, 2025
In a September report, the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) said human rights abuses, marine wildlife abuse, and lax regulations that enable overfishing are threatening the future of the Southwest Atlantic Argentine squid fishery.
“Without urgent action, we are heading for disaster,” EJF CEO and Founder Steve Trent said of the situation.
The report particularly called out China’s squid-jigging fleet as being guilty of contributing to… Read More
Published on
October 22, 2025
Despite numerous promises of infrastructure projects and the signing of fishery access agreements with African nations, China and the E.U. have done little to help African countries develop their own seafood-processing sectors, according to Edwin Ngwafor, the managing director of Timezone Marine Ventures, a Cameroonian fishing firm.
Ngwafor told SeafoodSource that “both Chinese and European actors have little interest in a strong African… Read More
Published on
October 22, 2025
The Agricultural Bank of China, which possesses assets worth around USD 6 trillion (EUR 5.2 trillion), has signed a mariculture partnership agreement with the Guangdong Haifa Group, a subsidiary of the Guangdong Port and Shipping Group.
Under the deal, the bank will provide financing worth CNY 10 billion (USD 140 million, EUR 120 million) to Guangdong Haifa that will go toward expanding regional mariculture production and the development of
… Read More