According to the industry monitoring system of the Federal Agency for Fisheries (Federal Service for Fisheries and Oceanography), the catch of fish and other aquatic bioresources by all Russian users exceeded 3.33 million tons by August 23, 2024.

Including the following mined:

• Far Eastern basin – 2.53 million tons
• Northern basin – almost 338.7 thousand tons (+4.2%)
• Western basin – 54 thousand tons.
• Azov-Black Sea basin – 21.6 thousand tons
• Volga-Caspian basin – 49.7 thousand tons.

In the exclusive economic zones of foreign states, conventional areas and the open part of the World Ocean, the Russian fleet extracted about 319 thousand tons.

Products from fresh catches are supplied to the country's domestic market on a priority basis.

Source: Federal Agency for Fisheries (translated from original in Russian)

Prime Minister Kishida Fumio has indicated that the government will present an outline of support measures for the fisheries industry, which has been affected by China's suspension of Japanese seafood imports.

Kishida announced this during a visit to a fish market in Iwaki City in Fukushima Prefecture on Saturday, one year after the release of treated and diluted water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant began.

He said the government needs to take all possible measures to mitigate the impact of the import ban that China introduced in response to the water discharge, and that ministers concerned will hold a meeting next week to present the outline.

He added that the government will take full responsibility for the discharges, which could take decades to finish.

Calling the ban a response without scientific basis, Kishida said the government again urged China to immediately scrap the measure. He said the government will continue its efforts at all levels.

The head of the Fukushima Prefectural Federation of Fisheries Co-operative Associations, Nozaki Tetsu, warned that a single failure could ruin all the efforts.

He called for extra attention to the safety management of the discharges.

Source: NHK

"The day gave room for good reflections and discussions, and we were able to point out the importance of good market access in the mix of activities that are done to promote Norwegian seafood abroad", says Børge Grønbech, Director of Global Operations at the Seafood Council. 

Over half of all mackerel fished in Norway goes to Japan.

"Improving market access is high on the agenda both for Ambassador Kristin Iglum, the government and the Seafood Council", says Grønbech.

The Japanese eat the most Norwegian mackerel in the whole world. Recently, however, the EU and the UK concluded a trade agreement with Japan. It means that customs duties on mackerel must be reduced to zero by 2033. The reduction has already begun. For frozen whole mackerel, the rate is now 3.9 per cent, while frozen fillets have no duty at all.

Norway currently has no similar agreement. Norwegian frozen mackerel has a duty rate of 7 per cent, and for the frozen fillet the rate is 10 per cent. In the worst case, this could result in Norway losing its most important mackerel market.

Source: Norwegian Seafood Council (translated from the original in Norwegian)

Last Wednesday,  Sjømatbedriftene  (Norwegian Seafood Association) handed over a comprehensive proposal for regulations and consultation opinion on the zero-emissions technology scheme to Fisheries and Oceans Minister Marianne Sivertsen Næss.

The proposal gives the Minister the opportunity to quickly sign off on the Storting's decision on an environmental flexibility scheme.

Through several reports, the media have uncovered major challenges in the farming industry. A clear majority of the industry's challenges are due to the lice problem. Lice and de-lice are the main causes of illness and death.

Managing Director of the Sjømatbedriftene, Robert H. Eriksson, says that the Seafood Companies have for several years requested an environmental flexibility scheme so that it will be possible to invest and focus on lice-free production methods. At the exhibition area of ??Nor-Fishing in Trondheim, he had the opportunity to present a complete proposal to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.

Source: Sjømatbedriftene (translated from original in Norwegian)

The campaign closes on Wednesday and there are ten boats that do not have a surplus quota and could have to tie up

The agreement with Portugal has not come to fruition, so the sardine fishing campaign will end on Wednesday for those boats that have not bought a surplus quota. The news, which was known today, has fallen like a bucket of cold water on the Cambados fishing guild, where there are ten boats affected, according to the chief skipper, Alejandro Pérez Miser. The larger purse seiners that bought quota in the south will be able to continue working and supplying the market, but the smaller ones could have to stop their activity since they can only opt for the capture of horse mackerel, and the little that there is is located in deep waters, not suitable for the inshore fleet.

The chief skipper admits that the news that the president of the National Federation of Guilds personally communicated to him took him by surprise, since the sector was confident that the negotiations initiated by the ministry with Portugal to increase the sardine quota would end up bearing fruit, but this has not been the case, which is causing concern in a purse seiner port like Arousa.

Source: La Voz de Galicia

Optimized Foods MycoCarrier™ is being used by the California-based food tech company as the basis for several new sustainable food creations that transform the fungi-based platform into high-value food products. 

The company's latest offerings include the fish-free Cultivated Caviar substitute that's grown in a lab using the cells from a sturgeon alongside the mycelium-based scaffolding to give it a sustainable profile that's inherently more sustainable. The company is also using the same technology in its HYphat product that reacts similarly to animal fat as an ingredient for implementation in alternative protein and plant-based food products.

The various innovations being used with the Optimized Foods MycoCarrier™ come as part of the company's wider shift towards refining eco-friendly food products targeted at the luxury market.

Author/Source: Michael Hemsworth / trendhunter.com

Domestic fishermen continue to fish for sardine, iwashi and mackerel. The catch of iwashi reached 166 thousand tons, which is 82% more than the figure for the same period in 2023. Mackerel was harvested at 1.8 thousand tons.

The main fishing area is the exclusive economic zone of Russia, where 154 thousand tons of iwashi were caught. Domestic fishermen fish for iwashi almost all year round, including working in the open waters of the northwestern part of the Pacific Ocean (NWPO) and in the exclusive economic zone of Japan.

Pacific Branch of VNIRO weekly information about the situation with fish approaches, synoptic conditions, and fishing conditions.

Commercial concentrations and the size of individuals this year make it possible to use a large share of the catch not only for technical purposes (fish meal and oil), but also in the production of food fish products (canned and preserved fish) - affordable, healthy and in demand on the domestic market.

In 2024, the projected catch of Iwashi is 579 thousand tons. However, the catch volume may be adjusted during the fishing season.

The pelagic fishing season (fishing for sardines, mackerel, and saury) takes place in the northwestern Pacific Ocean almost all year round.

The volume of catch of Iwashi sardine in Kuril waters in 2023 amounted to 544 thousand tons– this is a record figure for the post-Soviet period.

Source:  Federal Agency for Fisheries

Since its introduction into China in 1988, the tropical shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) has become the most important crustacean for aquaculture, not only in the Asian Giant but worldwide. China, as the largest producer of this species, has led technological advances and improvements in production, which has had a significant impact on the country's aquaculture economy and influenced aquaculture practices globally.

The challenges facing the Chinese industry are related to the degradation of genetic resources, the dependence on imported feed ingredients, the prevalence of diseases and other environmental problems arising from the intensification of aquaculture and the inadequate management of aquaculture waste. This is not something unique to the Asian country and occurs in other parts of the world.

To address these problems, China has implemented a series of measures, which seek to ensure the sustainability of the industry and which can offer valuable lessons for other producing countries.

This is suggested by a study led by researchers at the China Oceanographic University, which indicates that the innovations and practices adopted in the country could serve as a model to improve the efficiency, sustainability and profitability of shrimp aquaculture at a global level.

Source: MisPeces

At critical moments of activity, it seems that the provinces seek to alleviate their needs with a greater volume of social quotas. This attack adds more noise at times when the profitability of the business is being discussed, mainly in hake and shrimp.

In the context of the social needs that the provinces are going through, and faced with the problem of low or no profitability in various sectors, from primary extractive activity - such as fishing - to marketing in internal and international markets, several provinces have taken measures that could violate old pre-existing pacts or agreements, even putting the future biomass of certain resources at risk.

Without going into the justification of these actions, the concrete thing is that this offensive is manifested in various forms and fronts, especially in a context of high uncertainty for the coming months. An example of this is the situation of hake. At a time when the renewal of the Individual Transferable Catch Quotas (CITC) is being discussed, several actors have expressed, from different positions, the need to increase their participation in the fishery.

Source: Pescare