Mark Godfrey

Contributing Editor

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.

Published on
November 10, 2023

Negotiators at the World Trade Organization (WTO) are intensifying talks to reach an agreement on a draft text that would limit subsidies driving overfishing and overcapacity among global fishing fleets.

Icelandic Ambassador to the WTO Einar Gunnarsson, who has been chairing the negotiations, said he hopes to get a deal outlined before the organization’s ministerial meeting in February.

“I can tell you we are really turning up the

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Published on
November 2, 2023

China is requiring its entire distant-water fleet to implement electronic monitoring on its ships from 2024 onward, according to a new government whitepaper that comes soon after the release of a bombshell Outlaw Ocean report focusing on alleged worker abuses that occurred on some of the nation’s distant-water trawlers.

The report links specific Chinese processing companies to state-run labor programs that have subjected the Uyghur ethnic

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Published on
November 2, 2023

The supply of Chinese tilapia has tightened, and farmgate prices for the product have risen by over 30 percent compared to the same period last year, leading many processors to either suffer through delays in fulfilling contracts or break contracts rather than face sharp losses adhering to them.

Tilapia farmgate prices in the southern province of Hainan peaked at CNY 5.30 (USD 0.74, EUR 0.68) per 500 grams in mid-September, compared to CNY 3.90

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Published on
October 25, 2023

The Gulf of Guinea off the coast of West Africa experiences some of the highest rates of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing in the world, but closer collaboration between Beijing-based officials and West African nations could help limit the IUU actions of Chinese vessels in the region, a new report details.

Published by the Stimson Center, a Washington, D.C., U.S.A.-based nonprofit that analyzes issues related to world peace,

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Published on
October 24, 2023

Labor campaigners have accused the Irish government of reneging on a commitment to protect migrant fishery workers by not introducing legislative amendments it had promised unions it would implement four years ago.

The accusations hit a boiling point in relation to a case that an Egyptian migrant fisher named Elamir Elmadkhoum brought forth regarding long working hours. In response to Elmadkhoum’s filing, Ireland’s High Court in May

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Published on
October 19, 2023

The European Union has taken steps that would tighten Chinese seafood’s access to the European market by approving new fisheries control rules that aim to prevent seafood caught by illegal, unregulated, and unreported (IUU) fishing activities from entering its ports.

Campaigners have long advocated for more transparency on distant-water fishing, including calls for public access to information on the ownership of fishing vessels and

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Published on
October 18, 2023

This year’s autumn holiday season in China, which has historically involved elevated levels of seafood demand, is acting as a harbinger for seafood exporters considering whether to resume shipments to one of the world’s largest importing nations, with most hoping that inconsistent Chinese demand will stabilize in the near future.

“I believe that we are moving good volumes at the moment for the national holiday coming up in

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Published on
October 12, 2023

China’s shrimp industry has pinned its waning hopes at a revival this year on the country’s autumn holiday season, which traditionally results in a boost in nationwide seafood sales.

This year’s mid-autumn festival in China overlaps with the country’s annual National Day holiday, leading to a longer holiday season than usual.

Any boost in sales would be welcome news to firms like Guolian Aquatic, which has blamed falling

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Published on
October 10, 2023

Geopolitical and global economic shifts are driving trade between Saudi Arabia and China, while simultaneously helping the former country achieve its ambitions of dramatically increasing its aquaculture output by 2030.

Chinese aquaculture and feed firm Guangdong Evergreen Group inked a memorandum of understanding with the Saudi firm Falcon Vision this past spring, and in June 2023, Zhanjiang Guolian Aquatic Products and Saudi sovereign Public

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Published on
October 2, 2023
In an ongoing attempt to limit overcapacity and overfishing in the world’s oceans, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has proposed a two-tier reporting regime for its member states amid continued negotiations on ending harmful subsidies, which will subject the largest subsidizers of fishery activities to a higher level of scrutiny. Icelandic WTO Ambassador Einar Gunnarsson described the proposed setup as a “two-tier sustainability-based… Read More