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The new EMODnet Geology shoreline-migration map, freely accessible from the EMODnet Geology portal (emodnet-geology.eu),…

A Danish company has developed a system based on analysing data collected from 12 locations on a fish farm to improve water quality and fish welfare while reducing costs. Blue Unit, a company founded by David Owen, a biologist, in 2009, was established to optimise the operations of recirculation aquaculture systems by exploiting the data available from the RAS. A centralised monitoring system collects data on 13 water quality parameters, including pH, oxygen and carbon dioxide levels, opacity, and salinity, that are monitored by specially designed sensors and compares the numbers with benchmark values from producers around the world.

A new book from the Turkish Marine Research Foundation celebrates the country’s aquaculture industry, the third largest by volume in Europe after Norway and Spain. The book, Marine Aquaculture in Turkey: Advancements and Management, is a collection of papers written by academics, resource managers, and representatives from industry. Edited by M. Didem Demircan and Deniz D. Tosun from Istanbul University, and Deniz Coban from Aydin Adnan Menderes University, the papers cover all aspects of the aquaculture industry from production to the sector’s effects on the environment and on occupational health. Production Is fully integrated starting from broodstock and ending in a range of products for the market. Seabass, seabream, and rainbow trout farmed inland are the most cultivated species, but smaller volumes of several other species are also produced. The sector boasts 20 hatcheries, 23 feed plants, and over 200 processing facilities, and it maintains close links with the research establishment based in universities and institutes as well as with the government. Turkish legislation is harmonised with EU directives and regulations enabling the country to export some four fifths of its production to the EU. In 2023 the target is to produce 600,000 tonnes (up from 373,000 tonnes in 2019) and to export USD2bn (up from USD1bn in 2019) worth of fish and seafood products.

Newlyn, Cornwall’s biggest fish market, attracts some 1,000 tonnes of megrim, a flat fish, annually, reports the BBC, almost all of which is exported mostly to Spain. However, more bureaucracy for British traders and the introduction of border controls since Brexit have disrupted exports of fish to the continent including that of megrim. As a result, the Cornish Fish Producers Organisation (CFPO), in a bid to encourage British consumers to eat more megrim, is planning to rebrand the fish to Cornish sole. Another species, spider crab, that faces the same challenges, will be renamed Cornish king crab. The decision to rename the products was taken after consulting with chefs and consumers.

Sabine Wedell, project manager of the fish international trade show, is organising Digital Seafood Meeting, an online event to be held on Wednesday, 21 April 2021. Together with Monika Pain, project manager of Polfish in Gdansk, and Selin Akdogan, project manager of Future Fish Eurasia in Izmir, Ms Wedell will present the virtual event, where discussions on futuristic topics such as petri dish seafood will be combined with matchmaking sessions. Whether buyers, product developers or sales managers the Digital Seafood Meeting will give partners and customers the chance to meet one on one. The accompanying programme of talks will be spread over three themes: out-of-house sales, product launches in the retail trade, and innovations. The focus of the first will be mass catering where questions such as how the pandemic has changed this market and what comes next, will be debated. In the retail product launch theme discussions will relate to recent developments on the market, new products on offer, and the extent of their retail success.

Lea Wermelin, Denmark’s 35-year-old minister of the environment, has been named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum joining a who’s who of political,…

Icelandic shipping companies, Eimskip and Samskip, now transport fresh fish to Rotterdam rather than Immingham,…

The largest study to date of the cod stock in the eastern Baltic Sea shows that the fish has never had it worse. Behind the study are, among others, researchers from DTU Aqua, and according to senior researcher at the Department of Aquatic Resources, Stefan Neuenfeldt, the situation looks bleak. “I do not think we can save the stock as it looks now. But we can help the cod to survive, so that in 10-15 years it will have a second chance in a Baltic Sea, which hopefully is easier to live in by then.” Twice a year, researchers in Denmark and its neighbouring countries catch cod in the Baltic Sea to investigate how the stock is doing. Less than 20 years ago, the largest cod were up to 80 centimeters long, and healthy and strong fish were generally caught.

The Spanish Institute for Agricultural and Fisheries Research and Training (IFAPA) under the Andalusian Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Sustainable Development has concluded mapping the sole genome. This work could represent a qualitative leap in the farming of this commercially valuable species. IFAPA led the work that combined very long DNA sequences and genetic markers and will serve as the basis for mapping markers and their distribution throughout the genome. The integration of the physical and genetic map opens up new possibilities for farming sole, a species of high economic value in Europe.