Seafood Expo North America/Seafood Processing North America, scheduled to take place 15 to 17 March in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A., has been postponed by the event’s organizer, Diversified Communications.

The decision was made on 3 March in response to growing concerns over the global COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, according to Diversified Communications Group Vice President Liz Plizga.

“The March edition of the event is not going to be taking place as scheduled,” Plizga told SeafoodSource. “This was an incredibly difficult decision due to the importance of the event to the industry. We have been monitoring the rapidly evolving situation caused by the outbreak of COVID-19, and have done our best to listen to the concerns as well as the needs of our customers. We chose to make this decision now to give those planning to attend Seafood Expo North America enough time to respond to the postponement of the event.”

Plizga said Diversified is aiming to host the event later in 2020, either in Boston or in another U.S. city, with an announcement expected on that decision by mid-April. Exhibitors and visitors will have the option of rolling over their fees to that event, or alternatively, to the 2021 version of Seafood Expo North America in Boston.

“We’re looking at all our options to host an event in 2020,” Plizga said. “We want to do the right thing for our industry and ensure everyone has the business opportunities they typically find at our events.”

The decision follows on the heels of New Hope Network’s decision to postpone Natural Products Expo West 2020, which was slated to take place 3 to 7 March. Several seafood companies were planning to participate in that event, but New Hope said it felt pressure to push the event to a later date to avoid “

The spread of the COVID-19 virus, commonly referred to as coronavirus, has heavily impacted a key shrimp-producing province in Indonesia, resulting in a sharp decline of exports to China, Mongabay reported 25 February.

In early February, the Indonesian Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries said would restrict imports of live fisheries products from China as part of the country’s efforts to minimize the transmission of the virus.

The restrictions in trade with China, the major destination for shrimp from Indonesia, have come as a blow for the shrimp industry in Jambi, a province located on Sumatra Island.

The province’s shrimp export value fell 95.7 percent to just IDR 1 billion (USD 69,800, EUR 63,300) in February, from IDR 23 billion (USD 1.61 million, EUR 1.46 million) in December last year before the COVID-19 outbreak, according to local media, using data from the local government.

Author: Toan Dao/SEafoodSource | Read full article here

NORWAY’S Labour Minister Torbjørn Røe Isaksen is to take over the job of running the country’s fisheries and seafood ministry – at least for the time being.

He replaces Geir Inge Siversten, who resigned after just 39 days in the post – one of the shortest in Norway’s history.

Siversten stood down amid controversy over accepting severance money from his local government job while being paid as a minister – money he later returned.

He was also criticised for his links to a Masonic lodge which included a number of seafood executives as members.

Prime Minister Erna Solberg said last week she still had confidence in Siversten, but political pressure and criticism began to mount, forcing him to offer his resignation.

The new man, Torbjørn Røe Isaksen, a former journalist and editor, does not appear to have any close links with either fishing or aquaculture.

Author: Vince McDonagh/FishFarmer | Read full article here

A harbour development in Opotiki will support the emergence of a new aquaculture region for New Zealand, creating meaningful jobs and supporting a vibrant local community.

Aquaculture New Zealand has welcomed government plans to invest $79.4 million, announced today by Minister for Regional Economic Development Shane Jones, to build critical harbour infrastructure that will enable the burgeoning Bay of Plenty aquaculture industry to operate out of Opotiki.

“This is a game changer for the local aquaculture industry,” said Aquaculture New Zealand CEO Gary Hooper.

“With strong iwi involvement, Whakatohea Mussels has successfully pioneered the technology and systems required to farm mussels in the open ocean off Opotiki.

“At present Whakatohea Mussels services its farm with vessels operating out of Whakatane.

“The new harbour development will significantly reduce the travelling time, and operating costs and streamline sustainable growth.

“It will also enable them to land mussels directly in Opotiki and pave the way for a local processing facility which will potentially create hundreds of much needed local jobs and underpin long-term, sustainable development in the region.”

Increasing prices of Fresh whole Salmon exports products.

Whats going on here?  

Norway exported salmon products for 673 million Euros in January 2020. The year is off to a good start as this is a 17% increase since January last year and 21% more value than the last three-year average for the same month. Fresh-whole salmon is by far the most important product exported, making up roughly 84% of the total product-weight volume exported in January and 72% in terms of live-weight equivalent. This is a similar .....

What does this mean?

The prices reached a low in September 2019 and grew for the remainder of the year. The trend continues in January 2020 with the average export price of fresh-whole salmon reaching 7,60 EUR/kg in January. This is 19% higher than the January 2019 price of 6,39 EUR/kg and considerably higher than the 2019 (whole year) average price of ......

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Dundee-based aquaculture technology supplier Ace Aquatec is to lead a consortium that aims to develop, test and validate methods to humanely stun finfish on an industrial scale.

The project is one of three awarded a total of £1.93 million by the Humane Slaughter Association. The total cost of the finfish project is £721,580.

Norwegian research organisation Nofima will lead a similar study on commercial species of crab and lobster, and the Association of Cephalopod Research (CephRes) will research humane slaughter of cephalopods (octopuses, squid and cuttlefish).

Ace Aquatec is a leader in humane slaughter of finfish, having won the Innovation Award at Aqua Nor in Trondheim, Norway 2017 for its Humane Stunner Universal (HSU), a device that uses electricity to stun fish while they are still in the water.

The HSU is used by fish farmers including Scottish Sea Farms and Selcoth Trout near Moffat.

Recording brain activity

Ace Aquatec managing director Nathan Pyne-Carter said the three-year finfish project is a collaboration with Silsoe Livestock Systems Ltd, Steve Wotton Ltd and the Universities of Bristol and Stirling and IRTA (Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology, Catalonia). 

The consortium includes Tesco, as well as having the support of Waitrose.

The project will implement in-water electrical stunning in large volume finfish aquaculture industries where current killing methods fail to protect fish welfare.

Author: Gareth Moore/FishFarmingExpert | Read full article here

SOME 227,000 salmon have died at the Danish site of land based farming pioneer Atlantic Sapphire.

The company lost the fish at its commercial pilot facility over the weekend, according to a statement posted on the Oslo Stock Exchange.

‘Preliminary analysis, subject to further verification over the next days, indicates higher nitrogen levels than desired as the cause of the event, which has been addressed in design modification,’ the company wrote.

The rest of the Langsand Laks farm, which produces in total about 3,000 tonnes a year, was unaffected ‘due to the segregation design to have various independent systems’.

Atlantic Sapphire, which is developing the world’s largest RAS (recirculating aquaculture system) salmon farm in Miami, Florida, said the mass mortality in Denmark had pushed back harvesting by four months.

Source: FishFarming | Read full article here

Around 1500 tonnes of pearlside and krill were caught during experimental fishing along the west side of the Norwegian Trench last year.

Liegruppen’s Ligrunn was one of four vessels that participated in this experimental fishery for mesopelagic fish species that live on zooplankton and which could potentially be a significant resource both as a human food and as a source of marine protein and marine oils.

‘Catches of mesopelagic fish being landed in Norway is something new, so this is an important step in this experimental fishery,’ said researcher Åsmund Bjordal at the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research.

Four vessels participated in last year’s experimental fishing; Ligrunn, Liafjord, Havglans and Birkeland. Only Ligrunn and Liafjord landed significant catches.

Mesopelagic fishing has been tried in regions such as Oman, South Africa and Iceland, but this is still at an experimental stage, plus there are still challenges when it comes to stock estimation and effective capture technology.

Author: Quentin Bates/fiskerforum | Read full story here

Mariah Boyle poised to lead the sustainable seafood community toward an ambitious new goal

Today, the Conservation Alliance for Seafood Solutions, a global community of sustainable seafood groups, is thrilled to welcome Mariah Boyle to the team as its new Executive Director. Boyle will be bringing with her not only an impressive track record in fundraising, team building, and program design and implementation, but also ten years of partnering and problem-solving in the Alliance community itself. Her combined subject matter, operational, and contextual experience will enable her to hit the ground running as the Alliance launches into its 2020-2024 strategy this year.

The Conservation Alliance is a community of organizations from North America, Europe, South America, and Japan that believes seafood production is a powerful driver of change for the health and biodiversity of our oceans and the economic and social well-being of individuals and communities around the world. After ten years of working together to mobilize change, the Alliance recognized that it needed to do more to drive toward its vision, and so began a strategic planning process in 2018. The Alliance 2020-2024 Strategy, released January 2020, presents a plan of action toward an ambitious goal: by 2030, 75% of global seafood production will be environmentally sustainable or making verifiable improvement, and adequate safeguards will be in place to ensure social responsibility. To realize this goal, the Alliance must learn faster, partner more broadly, behave more efficiently, and focus more strategically than ever before. It was clear that a special kind of leader would be critical to the success of this aspirational goal. 

After the second inspection, the European Commission (EC) continues to extend for Vietnam another six months (January - June 2020) to try to remove the "yellow card" for seafood exports. From the beginning of this year, the seafood industry has been implementing a number of solutions, expecting to be able to get positive results in the next inspection.

"Erasing" violating fishing vessels

The EC Delegation of the General Affairs Department on Marine and Fisheries Affairs came to Vietnam for a second inspection of the implementation of recommendations related to illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing activities from November 5 to 14, 2019.On November 19, 2019, Vietnam received a notice of comments for the contents: tested and Vietnam will have an additional six months to consider removing the "yellow card". The EC inspection team confirmed: Vietnam has made progress compared to the first inspection (May 2018) and is on the right track. This is reflected in the fact that Vietnam has initially implemented the Fisheries Law and its actual guiding documents.

In the early days of 2020, talking with reporters of the Customs Newspaper onremoving the "yellow card" for Vietnamese seafood, Tran Dinh Luan, Director General of the General Department of Fisheries (MARD), affirmed that:The key is to solve the problem of Vietnamese fishing vessels illegally fishing in foreign waters. Theoretically, if Vietnam only has one fishing vessel violating, the ability to withdraw the "yellow card" is very difficult. This is because when Vietnamese fishing vessels violate, countries will respond directly to the EU, using non-governmental organizations to pressure the EU.

Author: Thanh Nguyen/ HuuTuc/Vietnam Custom News | Read full article here