Farmed fish in UK, London wants doubled by 2020

Maria Damanaki, the European commissioner for maritime affairs and fisheries, invited all parties to a meeting in Brussels, for an ‘open discussion on the latest scientific research’ on the state of the main fish stocks in European waters. During the meeting Commissioner Damanaki admitted that Too often information was lacking, the data were wrong or contradictory and fish were missing. There were large amounts of discards or illegal landings, which member states failed to catalogue with their other poor data. Quality data for bottom-up reform of the CFP was needed alongside good management measures at the “local level to demonstrate that regionalisation is worth doing”, she said.

Well in London there was a meeting over the decision of trying to increase the production of fish farms by 2020 and attracting investors, the views were mixed on this issue. Dr Tom Pickerell of the Shellfish Association of Great Britain. He accepted the poisoned chalice and argued, contrary to his own beliefs, persuasively that production could not be doubled. One of the Key issues to farming fish is the water quality, the indicators for the UK are far from good. Only 0.5 percent pf UK waters for shellfish farming meets the required ‘Class A’ water standards. Read more...