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
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an alert in May 2024 upon the discovery of excessive levels of chloramphenicol – an antibiotic banned by China that is typically used to treat bacterial infections – in imported tilapia produced by Hainan Eternal Springs Fisheries Co.
The alert comes as China’s tilapia sector is already facing such headwinds as low export demand and higher input costs.
Chinese tilapia
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The rightward tilt of the European Parliament could negatively impact European fisheries, according to Europêche Managing Director Daniel Voces de Onaíndi.
The European Union’s Common Fisheries Policy was an issue of contention in the 10 June E.U. election, which resulted in a rightward swing in the selection of 720 members of the European Parliament.
The parties that fared best in the election are generally in favor of more
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A coalition of seven labor unions in Indonesia and Taiwan is imploring both countries’ authorities to reach an agreement that ensures the rights of Indonesian migrant fishers recruited to work on Taiwanese fishing vessels.
The Coalition for the Protection of Indonesian Migrant Fishers in Taiwanese Fishing Vessels, which claims to represent more than 30,000 fishers globally, is aiming to further this cause through a more unified
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Western think tank reports on the fishery sector are ideologically biased and only targeted at China while ignoring transgressions by the Filipino fishing sector, according to the Chinese language edition of the Global Times, a state-run newspaper.
The report is based on visits by Global Times staff to fish markets in Manila, where they were offered various coral fish, including grouper, and the endangered Tridacna clam for sale. The Philippines
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Several Irish candidates running for election to the E.U. Parliament have claimed that the Netherlands exercises outsized control on the bloc’s fisheries policy and possesses an unfair share of quotas.
Irish MEP Luke Ming Flanagan is seeking reelection to Parliament, and claimed that MEPs from the Netherlands dominate fisheries policy discussions in Europe and would be unlikely to cede any quota their country has, some of which Flanagan
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The ferocity of the competition between Chinese seafood processors in a sluggish domestic market can be seen in the 2023 results of Gaodi Holdings.
The company, formerly known as the China Shenghai Group, booked a loss of CNY 38.1 million (USD 5.3 million, EUR 5 million) in the second half of 2023, compared to a loss of CNY 40.1 million (USD 5.6 million, EUR 5.2 million) in H1 2023, on revenue of CNY 195.9 million (USD 27 million, EUR 24.9
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World Trade Organization (WTO) members are expected to reconvene in June to negotiate a deal that eliminates harmful fishery subsidies, according to Ernesto Fernández Monge, a senior officer at The Pew Charitable Trusts who has been a leading observer of the talks across the course of their failed attempts.
According to Monge, Icelandic WTO Ambassador Einar Gunnarsson, who is chairing the talks, recently approached WTO member delegations
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