SeaFood Business is the global trusted authority for seafood buyers and sellers. We are the seafood industry's leading trade magazine with more than 30 years of experience. Our coverage is based on the "business" of buying and selling seafood.
Issue link: https://seafoodbusiness.epubxp.com/i/72022
Global News LUXEMBOURG EU outlaws discards, fails in other reforms Ministers discussed how E uropean fi sheries minis- ters fi nally agreed to im- plement a series of bans that will eff ectively outlaw the controversial practice of dis- carding unwanted fi sh at sea. Provisional dates agreed to by ministers at a tense Eu- ropean Council meeting in Luxembourg would see a dis- card ban for mackerel and her- ring by Jan. 1, 2014, while a phased ban on cod, haddock, plaice and sole discards would be fully operational by 2018. However, these dates are now subject to negotiations within the European Parliament. UTRECHT, Netherlands ASC salmon farming standards finalized T e World Wildlife Fund's (WWF) Salmon Aquacul- ture Dialogue last month fi nalized salmon-farming standards, completing an eight-year process. T e fi - nal standards, which were handed over to the Aquacul- ture Stewardship Council to manage and to oversee certi- fi cation of salmon farms, ad- dress the key environmental and social impacts associ- ated with salmon farming while maintaining the eco- nomic viability of the indus- try. Globally, farmed salmon production has grown more than 50 percent since 2000, according to WWF. T e Facts & FIGURES 2.1 Percent growth in global seafood production forecast for 2012 by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 157.3 67.3 Millions of metric tons (MT) of global seafood production forecast for 2012 by FAO, up from 154 million MT in 2011 Millions of MT of farmed seafood FAO forecasts for 2012, up from 63.6 million MT in 2011 10 SeaFood Business July 2012 COPENHAGEN,Denmark Barents Sea cod quota upped by 25 percent T e International Council for Exploration of the Sea recommended a 27 percent to set maximum sustainable yields, by which fi sheries would be managed in accor- dance with scientifi c advice over how much fi shing they can uphold, but the resolu- tion was ultimately tabled until a future date, possibly the end of the decade. U.K. Fisheries Minister Richard Benyon was disap- pointed the council didn't agree to the dates he want- ed for whitefi sh, but said a commitment to eliminating discards was a step in the right direction. T e U.K. standards are "unprecedent- ed for responsible farmed salmon production," says Petter Arnesen of Marine Harvest. Not praising everyone is the results, how- ever. T e Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform, a British Columbia-based coalition of environmental organizations, contends that closed-containment salmon farming is the only verifi able way to eff ectively reduce or eliminate negative impacts of salmon farming. government had been push- ing for a whitefi sh discard ban implementation date of Jan. 1, 2016. Benyon gave some indica- tion of the political resistance to fi sheries reform in the EU, warning ahead of the meet- ing that there were countries involved in the negotiations that "wanted to wreck the whole reform process" and that on the subject of a dis- cards ban there were those that wanted to push it well beyond 2020. "We know that working with the industry is eff ective and is a way of resolving this problem but ultimately it re- quires a clear, bold statement as part of the reform of this broken Common Fisheries Policy (CFP)," he says. "We increase in the 2013 quota for Northeast Arctic cod in the Barents Sea. T e pro- posed quota of 940,000 metric tons (MT) would be up from the 2012 quota of 740,000 MT. T e quota will be set by the joint Norwe- gian-Russian Fisheries Com- m ission in October. T is would be the Barents Sea cod fi shery's largest catch in 40 years, according to Norwe- gian Fisheries Minister Lis- beth Berg-Hansen. Also, the Norwegian Seafood Council announced that there have been no instances of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fi shing in the Bar- ents Sea for more than three years, thanks to eff orts of the joint commission. GARDABAER, Iceland Norwegian processors innovate for survival Countries with high labor costs often send whole frozen fi sh to China, where the cost of processing is much less. Kristján Hallvarðsson, direc- tor of product development want to see an end to dis- cards, an end to top down centralized control of the fi shing industry, and [the industry] brought into con- sideration with the Damanaki, wider marine environment." EU fi sheries chief Maria the architect of the CFP reform propos- als and the program to ban discarding, has conceded the outcome of the discard nego- tiations was a compromise, but was still a "workable" step in the right direction. for Marel, the world's biggest manufacturer of fi sh process- ing equipment based in Ice- land, says Norway's whitefi sh processors cannot compete with China. "If nothing is done to improve yield and increase automation in Nor- way within two to four years, the risk is that there will be signifi cantly less whitefi sh processing left in Norway," he says. Marel is heading up a project to develop auto- matic pinboning equipment to increase yield compared to cutting out pinbones by hand. Called "Apricot," the project is being carried out in conjunction with SINTEF (the Foundation for Scien- tifi c and Industrial Research) and two big Scandinavian companies, Norway foods and Samherji Sea- in Ice- land. "T e goal is to achieve as much as 2 to 4 percent improvement in yield," says Hallvarðsson, "which repre- sents signifi cant added value for our customers. At present 8 to 10 percent of the fi llet is removed manually by the V- cut to take out the pinbones." For updated NEWS, go to www.SeafoodSource.com