Saving Seafood

Economic Impact

Alaska salmon 2024: Markets still flooded as next harvest forecasts come in

February 3, 2024 — Even though the forecast for this year’s salmon production in Alaska is down from last year the harvest, especially sockeye coming out of Bristol Bay, will be headed for markets still flooded with last year’s product.

Overall, values for all species of Alaska salmon are down. The 2023 statewide commercial harvest tallied up to 230.2 million fish, for a 43 percent increase in production over the 167 million fish of 2022. But revenues for 2023 ($398.6 million) came in at roughly half of the $720 million that was generated in 2022.

That inversion of volume over value promises to perplex the industry going into this year’s season.

“I’m hearing that these are some of the worst market conditions in 20 years, 30 years, or even more,” says Greg Smith, communications director with the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, in Juneau. “It’s not just one species; it’s many species, and it’s not just Alaska seafood. It’s domestic seafood, and seafood globally.”

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game prediction for Bristol Bay’s 2024 total sockeye run has been set at 39 million. Given the confidence levels in the modeling, the industry can expect a range of 24 million on the low side of the prediction – and more than 53 million fish in the most optimistic scenario.

Historical records since 2001 show that on the average the department has underestimated runs by 15 percent. Subtract the escapement to the bay’s nine major river systems, and fishermen can expect to harvest in the neighborhood of 25 million sockeyes.

Among the major production districts, run projections for the Naknek-Kvichak have been pegged at 15 million, with the fabled Nushagak set at around 12 million sockeyes and potential harvests at Egegik and Ugashik districts estimated at around 5 million each.

That’s a lot of fish, and though the onslaught of the run lies months away, questions loom of whether there will be a fleet to catch them and enough processing capacity to put them up.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

From Bubba Gump to bust? American shrimpers face extinction

January 31, 2024 — On a chilly December morning, the captain of the Miss Patti is ready to throw his lines and go shrimping – well, almost. Brian Jordan’s deckhand is in a foul mood, and it’s no wonder why. Is any of this worth it?

Here on the tiny working waterfront of Tybee Island, Georgia, the hesitancy is logical. Shrimp prices cratered this year, and hundreds of boats from Brownsville, Texas, to Harkers Island, North Carolina, remained dockside.

The problem hasn’t been a lack of shrimp or the price of diesel. Instead, freezers across the United States are filled to the gills. A glut of imported shrimp has dropped the price to about half of what shrimp boats received in the 1980s.

At stake is the livelihood of Mr. Jordan and shrimpers like him nationwide. They can’t compete with overseas rivals who raise and harvest shrimp in lower-cost “aquaculture’’ farms. There, baby shrimp essential to the marine life food chain are raised in artificial saltwater ponds, then harvested in bulk and sold for reduced prices around the world.

Because shrimp is the most valuable marine product traded in the world today – growing from a $10.6 billion industry in 2005 to over $60 billion in 2022 – the shift is consequential on many fronts. The practice is generating substantial income for developing countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, India, Vietnam, Brazil, Ecuador, and Bangladesh.

But the trend, some experts say, hurts more than just seafaring boaters like Mr. Jordan: Much of the overseas aquaculture industry is damaging to the environment, they say

Read the full article at the Christian Science Monitor

Roman Tkachenko: Ukraine war is “horrible,” but US seafood ban not hurting Russia

January 31, 2024 — Roman Tkachenko, the CEO of Direct Source Seafood, a seafood importer based in Bellevue, Washington, U.S.A., is not thrilled with the U.S. government’s decision to implement and then expand a ban on Russian seafood entering the U.S.

Russian king crab inventories are almost extinguished in the U.S., and it’s impossible to bring more in as cooked frozen legs and claws, even with third-country processing that would change the country of origin. That’s because the only way to achieve a “deep transformation” of king crab to qualify it for the change is to process it into crab meat. Cooking from live king crab it is not enough for U.S. customs authorities, Tkachenko said. And Russia is getting such high prices from Chinese and Asian buyers for whole live and frozen crab, they don’t need to sell to the U.S., he said.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

DNV: Global seafood demand predicted to soar through 2050 in line with population growth

January 31, 2024 — Global seafood demand per capita will continue to grow through 2050, with production growing exponentially to meet that demand, according to the “Seafood Forecast” compiled by Norwegian risk management and assurance firm Det Norske Veritas (DNV).

The firm’s latest report analyzes the interactions between seafood value chains and other food systems, between food security and growing supply-demand imbalances across different regions, and between the need for sustainable feed and the need for a robust food supply. It forecasts an increase in overall marine seafood production – incorporating all farmed and wild-caught finfish, crustaceans, and mollusks – of about 20 percent by 2050.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Shrimp alliance calls for U.S. ban on forced-labor imports

January 30, 2024 — The Southern Shrimp Alliance asked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security this week to add eight seafood processors in China to a list of companies blocked from importing to the U.S. because of their use of forced labor.

In a Jan. 29 letter the SSA points to evidence that red shrimp caught off Argentina  is shipped to China, and processed in plants in Shandong province where members of China’s ethnic Uyghur work under forced labor conditions.

The shrimp alliance in particular cites reporting on Uyghur labor by the Outlaw Ocean Project, a nonprofit investigative journalism group founded by maritime reporter Ian Urbina.  

“The Outlaw Ocean Project recently documented that members of the Uyghur minority were forcibly moved out of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) to Shandong and coerced to work in seafood processing facilities, including shrimp,” according to a statement from the SSA.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Southern Shrimp Alliance calls for ban on shrimp entering US from eight Chinese companies

January 30, 2024 — The Southern Shrimp Alliance is calling on the U.S. government to increase its scrutiny of shrimp processed and shipped to the U.S. by Chinese exporters, and a complete ban on imports from multiple companies, after recent revelations regarding alleged uses of Uyghur and forced labor by The Outlaw Ocean Project.

On 29 January, the SSA sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force calling on the department to scrutinize shrimp sourced from China’s Shandong province. The Outlaw Ocean report found extensive evidence of forced labor being employed in Shandong’s seafood processing sector.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Ørsted agrees to acquire Eversource’s 50% share of Sunrise Wind project

January 30, 2024 — Danish company Ørsted has agreed to acquire utility company Eversource Energy’s 50% stake in a 924-megawatt offshore wind farm in New York, Sunrise Wind.

Eversource, based in Hartford and Boston, previously announced that it would divest its 50% ownership stake in three offshore wind projects in New York and Connecticut, including Sunrise Wind.

As a result, Eversource will take a 2023 fourth-quarter charge of up to $1.6 billion.

Read the full article at Hartford Business 

Cod harvests are down, a trend likely to continue

January 30, 2024 — Global cod landings are down 33 percent over the past decade, and the downward trend has accelerated over the past three years.

On 25 January, at the 2024 Global Seafood Market Conference in Orlando, Florida, U.S.A., Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers Director of Industry Relations, Partnerships, and Fishery Analysis Ron Rogness reported global cod catch declined to 1.12 million metric tons (MT) in 2023.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Maryland offshore wind developer pulls out of state agreement, seeks new financial support

January 26, 2024 — Maryland’s nascent offshore wind energy industry suffered a major blow late Thursday when one of the two companies planning to install wind turbines off the coast of Ocean City announced that it was “repositioning” its plans, pulling out of its agreement with the state and seeking alternative financial arrangements to keep the project going.

Ørsted, the world’s largest developer of offshore wind, emphasized that it was still committed to building its project in federal waters, but said it was opting out of the agreement it had reached with the Maryland Public Service Commission for financial clean energy credits intended to help fund the development. The company said that while it would still seek permits for the proposed wind farm from the federal government, and would continue to develop construction and operations plans for Maryland, the current financial realties of the offshore wind industry made it impossible to continue under the present arrangement.

A statement Ørsted issued late Thursday said the projected revenue from the state’s clean energy credits, which cap what the company can charge ratepayers for its wind power, is “no longer commercially viable because of today’s challenging market conditions, including inflation, high interest rates and supply chain constraints.”

Through two separate but adjacent leases known as Skipjack 1 and Skipjack 2 that had won state approval, Ørsted is ticketed to provide 966 megawatts of wind energy beginning later this decade. A company executive said Ørsted was determined to work with state officials, potential investors and other stakeholders in an effort to find a better way to finance and save the project.

Read the full article at the Rhode Island Current

Climate change could critically harm $253 billion US fishing industry, experts tell senators

January 25, 2024 — Climate change has caused ocean temperatures to steadily rise, which, experts warned senators Wednesday, could significantly harm the fishing industry.

Andrea Dutton, a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, said burning fossil fuels primarily drives climate change, which could cause widespread economic and environmental problems.

Fossil fuels generate high levels of carbon dioxide, which, in oceans, could cause heat waves and create acidic seawater that could harm anything living in the ecosystem.

Rashid Sumaila, a University Killam professor and research chair at the University of British Columbia’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, said fisheries catch about 120 million tons of fish annually, generating about $240 billion in worldwide revenue.

Read the full article at The Hill