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Wednesday 10 June 2020
Top Government advice - eat deep-fried battered Dover sole!
Monday 8 June 2020
Small boats and female workers hardest hit by Covid-19
Coronavirus – latest updates See all our coronavirus coverage Seascape: the state of our oceans is supported by The David and Lucile Packard FoundationAbout this content Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent
Supply chains around the world have been disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, and artisanal fishing – small boats – has borne the brunt, according to the annual report on fisheries by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). While industrial fishing fell only by about 6.5% in April, a large proportion of small vessels around the world have been in effect confined to port, and their markets are uncertain.
In parts of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, more than 90% of small-scale fishing fleets have had to stop fishing owing to a lack of markets and falling prices.
The closure of restaurants, hotels and catering has cut off markets for small boats and led to falling prices, and the resulting disruption has led to an increase in waste, according to an appendix to the annual report, published on Monday for World Oceans Day.
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Tell us Advertisement Some of these effects are hard to quantify as yet. The main report was prepared before the coronavirus crisis hit, so the appendix contains only preliminary information rather than extensive research, but it indicates a growing difficulty for many small fishing fleets around the world.
Women make up at least half of the labour force in fisheries and fish farms, and have been particularly affected by the Covid-19 crisis, according to the report. The economic impact of restricted sales and the difficulty of finding routes to market has been compounded by the closure of processing operations and markets, where many women are employed, and by the risk of infection they face when working in fish processing warehouses or markets. Many have had to work longer hours under unsafe conditions.
Countries are urged to keep their supply chains running and their borders open to trade in fish – about 38% of fish is internationally traded – to help small-scale fishers cope amid the crisis.
While small fishing fleets have faced hardship, some massive industrial trawlers have kept up their operations – Greenpeace recently tracked the movements of some mega trawlers around the UK coast – to the consternation of local fishing fleets.
Philip Evans, oceans campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said: “This continuing industrial fishing activity is in the context of an ocean in crisis, with many fish populations already on the brink of collapse. Once the pandemic is over, attention must turn again to reforming global fisheries governance and placing at least 30% of the world’s oceans off limits to fishing activity, to give fish populations space to recover from decades of destructive industrial fishing activity.”
What lies beneath: our love affair with living underwater Read more Around the world, fish consumption reached a record high last year, according to the FAO’s report. Per capita consumption hit 20.5kg for the year and is expected to increase, with total fish production predicted to rise to 204m tonnes in 2030, which would be an increase of 15% on 2018.
Fishing was worth about $400bn (£316bn) around the world in 2018, according to the report, of which close to half was from fish farming, in which China is the global leader.
“Fish and fisheries products are recognised not only as some of the healthiest foods on the planet, but also as some of the less impactful on the natural environment,” said Qu Dongyu, the director general of the FAO.
But more effort is needed to improve the management and rebuilding of fish stocks, or increased consumption will come at the expense of serious damage to fish populations. More than a third of fish stocks globally are fished at unsustainable levels, according to the FAO.
There has been some success in the past year in fostering more sustainable fisheries, according to the report, which points to tuna fisheries, of which two-thirds are now fished at sustainable levels. While insufficient, that represents substantial progress, as the proportion fished sustainably has risen by 10 percentage points in two years, the report says.
“The improvement, the fruit of contributions from many stakeholders, attests to the importance of active management to reach and maintain biological sustainability, and serves to underscore how urgently we must replicate such approaches in fisheries and regions where management systems are in poor shape,” said Manuel Barange, the director of the FAO’s fisheries and aquaculture department.
Despite the report’s upbeat findings, concerns remain around the fishing of tuna, as the Guardian has reported, highlighting the difficulty in squaring the global demand for a sustainable source of protein and the poor governance that prevails in many fishing areas.
Saturday 6 June 2020
UK seafood funds make final COVID-19 payments
Eligible businesses will be contacted by the MMO and payments will be made directly into business accounts by 15 June.
The fund, which was introduced on 17 April in response to COVID-19, has so far made payments to more than 1,200 fishing and aquaculture businesses affected by the crisis. June’s installment will be the final payment from this fund.
Funding of GBP 1 million (USD 1.3 million, EUR 1.1 million) was included for the Domestic Seafood Supply Scheme, a grant program for projects to support the sale and consumption of locally-caught fish.
This joint endeavour between the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas), the fishing industry, and MMO awarded grants to the first successful projects this week. The judging panel is due to review further projects on 8 June.
“We mobilised quickly to be able to put both of these funds in place and ensure the cash from the Treasury and the Maritime and Fisheries Fund was invested directly into the fishing industry at the earliest opportunity,” MMO CEO Tom McCormack said.
Meanwhile, some 128 seafood processors have received support totalling GBP 5.6 million (USD 7 million, EUR 6.3 million) from the Scottish Government’s Seafood Resilience Fund, which has now also closed to applications.
Again launched in April, the processor fund has been assisting businesses impacted by the collapse of international markets and the shutdown of the United Kingdom’s foodservice sector.
According to the Scottish Seafood Association (SSA), the speed and delivery of the resilience fund saved several businesses from failure.
“By and large, the COVID-19 shutdown affected most Scottish processors, and without the fast action of the Scottish government would have led to job losses right across the seafood supply chain,” SSA Business Manager Jimmy Buchan said.
Stephen Thomson of East Lothian-based processor JK Thomson, which received a GBP 100,000 (USD 125,442, EUR 111,659) grant, also praised the scheme.
“I would say the timing of this fund and the speed in which it was paid – so soon after the application went in – was vital. When we filled in the application form, things appeared to be very bleak, and to know the Scottish government was behind us was very comforting, and gave us great encouragement,” he said.
Other COVID-19 funds that have been assisting the Scottish seafood industry include the Sea Fisheries Intervention Fund, to support boat owners, and the Aquaculture Hardship Fund to help shellfish and trout farmers.
Full story courtesy of Jason Holland.
Friday 5 June 2020
New e-commerce platform launched to boost UK seafood sales
Funding for the platform was provided by the Fish on Friday’s COVID-19 Rapid Response Grant Program (RRGP), which was developed by the Fishmongers’ Company’s Fisheries Charitable Trust (FCFCT) and Seafarers UK to assist food charities, fishing and seafood businesses impacted by the ongoing coronavirus situation.
KuulFoods said that it has been working closely with Fishmongers’ Company since the start of the crisis to build the solution. Coming at no cost to the user, it runs online orders and payments and includes a reporting tool for all sales, orders, revenues, and stock.
Adapted from another piece of technology used in the hospitality sector, the system has been designed to make it easy to sell seafood products online – both B2B and B2C – with little tech knowledge and no major investment. Businesses can choose to customize their online shops to fit with their company branding, or they can link their e-commerce page to a social media account.
The intention is to add to the solution with a customer app and a fully integrated electronic point of sale (EPOS) function in the summer.
KuulFoods’ Gary Pleece told SeafoodSource that the solution is a long-term program and is now onboarding its first customers.
“The e-commerce solution is good to go with a few enhancements in production. The in-store version will be ready in circa eight weeks,” he said.
According to the Fish on Friday project, the RRGP prioritizes initiatives that demonstrate collaborative working among stakeholders, with preference given to COVID-19 grant applications under GBP 10,000 (USD 12,259, EUR 11,195).
Thursday 4 June 2020
Job vacancy - Sales Management Assistant based in Penzance
Seafish "Future of Our Inshore Fisheries" project outlined
The two-day Future of Our Inshore Fisheries conference, which took place in October 2019, brought almost 180 representatives together to discuss the challenges faced by UK inshore fishermen.
The Future of Our Inshore Fisheries conference report details the conference presentations, the findings from group discussion sessions and the results of live polling. While the report does not make specific recommendations, it does outline the key themes which emerged and captures the priority areas identified by participants. The report concludes by recognising that the scale of change which is wanted and needed is significant, and that developing and implementing solutions will take time.
Based on the report’s findings, the steering group has identified five themes that will shape future work: co-management; collaborative science; credible fisheries management; rights and access; and effective compliance. The action plan is the first attempt to set out clear, deliverable actions across these themes that will be progressed over the next 12 – 18 months. Key actions include:
- Mapping inshore fisheries by species, stock and management status, and creating a database where this information is stored and updated annually.
- Establishing a formal process that enables scientists, industry and policy makers to collectively ‘peer review’ the science that is used to inform management decisions.
- Developing a ‘harvest strategy standard’ that will guide how inshore fisheries will be managed, with each fishery having a management target that helps set fishing effort and a series of triggers to guide if new management measures are needed. (New provisions for Fisheries Management Plans set out in the UK Government’s Fisheries Bill will allow for such new approaches to management.)
- Reviewing access across priority inshore fisheries to determine the optimal arrangements to prioritise sustainability, deal with excess capacity, address technological development and test new ways of allocating fishing opportunities.
A series of pilot studies will be used to test and refine the various initiatives. This will ensure that the experience and expertise of fishermen will directly inform the project, every step of the way. This project will also act as a focal point for a range of wider initiatives taking place across government and industry that will ultimately contribute to improved fisheries management.
Commenting on the publication of the report and action plan, steering group chair Michel Kaiser, Professor of Fisheries Conservation at Heriot Watt University, said:
“At the conference last year we heard about approaches to inshore fisheries management from around the world. Crucially, we also considered how well they might apply at home. With this next phase of work, we will start developing and testing some of the solutions to see what will work best for UK fisheries.”
“The action plan is wide ranging and reflects the complex nature of the task ahead of us. Transforming how our inshore fisheries are managed will not be easy, will take time and there may well be mistakes along the way. Too often reasons have been found not to start this work, but with the industry and government collaborating we have an opportunity to get this right now.”
“I firmly believe that the conference was a success because we had active fishermen in the room contributing their vital expertise and experience. This is the ethos we will maintain as we undertake this critical project and I am very pleased that we have inshore fishermen represented on the steering group.”
Steering group member Barrie Deas, Chief Executive of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisation said:
“The conference report is rich in energy, information and insight, informed by the participation of active fishermen. But it is of course not an end in itself; I doubt that we would have seen the engagement from fishermen across the country if our ambition was limited to producing a report.
“I particularly welcome the publication of the action plan. Importantly, it builds on the conference outcomes and takes into account the priorities that conference attendees set. The individual projects in the plan represent the building blocks of a world class fisheries management system, and over time these have the potential to add up to a fundamental transformation.
“We should be ambitious in wanting a fisheries management system that is truly sustainable, and which not only meets our environmental objectives but is also capable of meeting our social and economic needs at a national, regional and local level.
“Clearly reforming our inshore fisheries is a long-term project, but this is a good start.”
Steering group member and inshore fishermen Joel Dunn said:
“I am involved in the Future of Our Inshore Fisheries project because I want to have a say in the future of inshore fisheries management. Obviously with covid-19 we have extra difficulties and pressures facing us as fishermen at the moment, so along with others on the steering group I had to think about whether this was the right time to launch the next phase of the initiative. In the end I decided that it was important to keep going so we can keep pushing for the changes inshore fishermen want and need.
“I know and understand that some fishermen may not be able to get involved as much as they might like at the moment, but this is a long term project and there will be plenty of opportunities to get involved. If this project is to have any impact or benefit it is no good to let it drift, so I believe it is the right thing to do to get this next phase started.”
The Future of Our Inshore Fisheries project was set up in January 2019. Six inshore fishermen who attended the conference joined the project steering group earlier this year to ensure that the insights of active fishermen continue to inform the process at a strategic level.
Access the full report, the action plan and further information on the Future of Our Inshore Fisheries project.
Innovative Responses to the Pandemic
In recent months, the UK fisheries industry has had to rapidly respond to the changing national and global landscape in the face of the ongoing pandemic. In addition to support from governments, the industry has also taken steps independently to ensure its continued survival. This has resulted in a number of unique innovations, most notably in terms of trade and welfare support.
The APPG will be hosting an online public meeting for attendees to learn more about these initiatives, and to put their questions to the panel. The meeting will be taking place via Zoom on Thursday 4 June from 3pm to 4.30pm.
A panel of sector representatives will present on a number of innovative responses that are taking place across the UK. There will also be attention drawn to existing measures that have proved invaluable during this time. Presentations will be followed by a Q&A session, where all attendees are invited to submit questions for the panel. The meeting is a great opportunity for Parliamentarians and the industry to learn about the action taking place within the sector.
APPG ScheduleInformation on speakers and the event schedule is available here.
If you wish to attend, or for further information, contact us at secretariat@fisheriesappg.org.