Specialist team aiming to get Scottish seafood exports to Europe back on track By Alan Hendry
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Updated: 11:13, 29 January 2021
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Donna Fordyce, chief executive of Seafood Scotland, says the specialists are ready to hit the ground running . Picture: Alan Richardson
A specialist team is being assembled to help seafood exporters get their trade with the European Union back on track after the damaging delays caused by post-Brexit bureaucracy.
The exporting consultants will be brought together by trade body Seafood Scotland in a bid to move forward from the problems encountered by many firms over the past four weeks.
EU Reporter
Published 2 months ago
The UK fisheries audit released today (22 January) by the largest international advocacy organization dedicated solely to ocean conservation, Oceana, paints a disturbing picture of the state of UK fish stocks. Only 36% of the 104 audited stocks were known to be healthy in terms of stock size and only 38% sustainably exploited. Oceana calls on the UK government to stop overfishing and lead the way in sustainable fisheries by setting catch limits in line with science.
Of the top 10 most economically important fish stocks for the UK, 6 are overfished or their stock biomass is at a critical level: North Sea cod, North Sea herring, Southern North Sea crab, Eastern English Channel scallops, North East Atlantic blue whiting and North Sea whiting. Further, there is insufficient data to define reference points for North Sea anglerfish. Therefore, only 3 of the top 10 stocks upon which the UK fishing industry relies are both healthy and sustainably exploi
The UK has set out a package of financial support for seafood exporters, which have complained of a slump in sales in the wake of the country's trade deal with the EU. related to Chilled foods, Frozen, Private label, Seafood and seafood alternatives,
Post-Brexit Britain will continue to use the Global South as its dumping ground for unsorted plastic waste, despite the EU banning the practice.
On 1 January 2021, an EU law preventing unsorted and contaminated plastic waste being shipped to non-OECD countries came into force. But the UK, now separated from the EU and its laws, has fallen short of expectations by failing to adopt equally rigorous policies.
Environmental campaigners have accused the UK government of going back on promises made in the 2019 Conservative Party
manifesto. The political party, which is currently in power in the UK, said it would push the country to “lead the world in tackling plastics pollution” and “ban the export of plastic waste to non-OECD countries.”
Defra Seeks Support for Gene Editing; Launches Consultation January 13, 2021
George Eustice, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, England. Photo Source: Oxford Farming Conference
The United Kingdom s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is planning to conduct a consultation on gene editing which could unlock substantial benefits to nature, the environment and help farmers with crops resistant to pests, diseases, or extreme weather and to produce healthier, more nutritious food. Secretary George Eustice made the announcement in his speech at the Oxford Farming Conference on January 7, which focused on science.
In his speech, the Secretary said that techniques such as gene editing are really a natural evolution of conventional approaches to plant breeding. Gene editing, he said, gives us the power to evolve plant varieties with particular traits far faster than was ever possible with conventional breeding and this opens up hug