Norway is  preparing to impose a production tax on foreign-owned aquaculture businesses, it emerged at the weekend.

The tax, which will also affect employees, will apply to those companies which farm offshore in Norwegian waters, on the continental shelf.

Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum (pictured) has submitted his proposals for public and parliamentary consultation.

Author: Vince McDonagh / Fish Farmer l Read the full article here

Aquabounty, a Massachusetts-based salmon producer, has released financial reports for its activities in the final quarter of 2023, along with a full report for the year, revealing a significant increase in net losses for the company.

For the year ended 31 December 2023, product revenue totaled $2.47 million, a year-over-year decrease of 21 percent as compared to $3.14 million in 2022. Net losses for AquaBounty over the same period are even higher, increasing to $27.56 million - a 24 percent increase as compared to the company’s net losses for 2022.

Source: The Fish Site l Read the full article here

According to statistics, 1,177 tons of fish were imported until February 2024, an increase of 4% compared to 1,131 tons in the same period in 2023.

The main fish imported from Ecuador is frozen vannamei shrimp, and 789 tons were imported, or 67% of the total volume, an increase of 31% compared to 603 tons in the same period in 2023. The average import unit price decreased to USD 6.05/kg compared to USD 6.22/kg in 2023.

Frozen ribbon fish (Hairtail) is the second most imported product, representing 28.9% of Ecuadorian seafood imports with 340 tons, a decrease of 29% compared to 482 tons in the same period last year, with an average import unit price of USD 2.35/kg. It rose slightly compared to 2.23 USD/kg in 2023.

The third was the frozen conger eel fillet, which represented 48 tons of the total, representing 4.1% of the total. In 2023, it was not imported until February, and the average import unit price this year was USD 4.10/kg.

The total amount imported of Ecuadorian seafood from January to February 2024 was USD 5.76 million, an increase of 20% compared to USD 4.82 million in the same period of 2023. 

In addition, the average unit import price was USD 4.90/kg, an increase of 14.9% compared to USD 4.27/kg in 2023.

Source: Union Forsea Corp.

The Norwegian Seafood Council has employed Sigrid Louise G. Philippart (41) in the position of seafood envoy to France.

- It is very gratifying to be able to announce that Sigrid is taking over responsibility for the Seafood Council's marketing work in France. Sigrid has a very strong CV and an exciting background for us, says director of global operations at the Norwegian Seafood Council, Børge Grønbech.

- In Sigrid, we get a very good capacity that can further develop one of the core markets for Norwegian seafood, where we have done solid work together with the industry over a long period of time, continues Grønbech.

With fresh energy into the seafood industry

Philippart now has 14 years in the energy industry behind her. She has a double master's degree in international management and a bachelor's degree in languages ??and social sciences, including French. Sigrid is leaving her position as strategy and communications manager at St1 Norge AS

- I am very happy to have the opportunity to promote Norwegian seafood in France. I look forward to getting to know the industry, partners and colleagues in the Norwegian Seafood Council, and to contributing to further growth in a large and important market, says

Thanks Horne for the job

Philippart replaces Trine Horne, who has been the Seafood Council's woman in France for the past five years.

Source: Norwegian Seafood Council

Physicists are also interested in fish – above all when they are researching the formation of structures. A research team from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) and the University of Bristol (United Kingdom) has examined the schooling behaviour of zebra danio (Danio rerio, also known as “zebrafish”) using methods from the field of multi-particle physics. In the scientific journal Nature Communications, they explain that groups of just three fish already move in a similar way to large schools while, by contrast, two fish display completely different behaviour.

The saying “three is a crowd” seems not only to apply to “The Three Investigators” and the three musketeers. In various scientific phenomena – such as primary colours or spatial dimensions – three options are also enough to characterise different states.

Physicists have now investigated how various large groups of living creatures behave. They wanted to know the minimum group size needed for the movement patterns of the individual members to change and become a coordinated group movement. And three does indeed seem to be the key number for zebrafish. 

The physicists fitted an aquarium in Bristol with synchronised cameras to measure the three-dimensional swim trajectories of their zebrafish. They systematically recorded these trajectories for various group sizes – two, three, four and fifty fish.[...]

Source: Press Releases HHU | Read the full story here

First Nations in western Canada have criticised Hollywood star and environmental and Indigenous rights campaigner Leonardo DiCaprio for a lack of knowledge and “cherry picking” which Indigenous rights he supports after he called for the closure of salmon farms in British Columbia.

In a social media post on Instagram, DiCaprio – star of Titanic and many other blockbuster movies - encouraged his 62.1 million followers to support a campaign by anti-salmon farming group Wild First. The group, backed by wealthy investor and sport fisherman Tony Allard, wants to stop BC salmon farm licences being renewed next year, in a move that would cost thousands of jobs and devastate remote First Nations communities that rely on the industry for work and income.

Source: fishfarmingexpert l Read the full article here

At least five shipyards have filed lawsuits in Russian courts against the Finnish leader in engines and propulsion systems for denial of supply. These claims, worth more than €11 million, are unlikely to succeed given that Wärtsilä is applying international sanctions and that all of these Russian shipyards belong to the state naval group USC, which is itself subject to sanctions.

11,277 million euros is the amount of the claims already known in Russia against Wärtsilä after the acceptance by local courts of the appeals presented by the Admiralty, Baltisk and Severnaya shipyards, all of them located in the Saint Petersburg region.

Source: EuropaAzul l Read the full article here

"The U.K. seafood industry has an opportunity to lead the world in decapod welfare standards"

U.K. retailer Marks & Spencer (M&S) has been named the top performer in the second edition of Crustacean Compassion’s benchmarking report on decapod crustacean welfare.

Conducted by West Sussex, U.K.-based Chronos Sustainability, the report, “The Snapshot,” outlines 30 seafood companies’ performances related to the welfare of crabs, lobsters, prawns, and nephrops in their supply chains

Author: Nicki Holmyard / SeafoodSource l Read the full article here

Portugal has established management measures for sardine fishing, setting a maximum catch and landing limit at 37,642 tonnes (66.5%), in accordance with the global catch limit of 56,604 tonnes agreed by Portugal and Spain in the framework of shared management in Ibero-Atlantic waters of zones VIIIc and IXa of the ICES and the Multiannual Management Plan for the Iberian Sardine (2021-2026), approved by the European Commission.

Source: Industrias Pesqueras l Read the full article here