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FISH buyers in the UK and Europe can expect more cod, but a lot less haddock from Iceland over the next 12 months.
The Icelandic Ministry of Fisheries has set the annual cod quota for coming fishing year, which starts on September 1st, at 160,000 tones -10,000 tons more than the current year, and exactly as predicted by Fishupdate just over a month ago.
However, there is not such good news on haddock which is popular in Britain. The quota has been set at 50,000 tons, a reduction of 20 per cent or 13,000 tones on the current year. It is the second large scale reduction in successive years and could well force up haddock prices here in Britain.
Nevertheless, the cut was widely expected because the haddock stock around Iceland is not in the best of shape. The impact will not be felt immediately because there is still much of this year's haddock quota be caught, and rules in Iceland allow for some unused quota to be carried over into the new fishing year.
Cod stocks, however, are in a very healthy state.Most of the analysts seem to agree that cod is on the increase and probably more so than had been expected. The Fisheries minister Jonas Bjarnason is therefore setting up a working group to revise the so-called fishing rule, which determines the share of the cod stock (so-called reference stock) that can be taken each year. This share is now 20 percent and there is some speculation that this might be increased to 25 per cent probably next year.
Other quotas set were: - Greenland halibut 13,000 tones (up by 1,000 tones); monkfish 2,500 tons (no change) saithe (North Atlantic Pollack) 50,000 tones (no change).
The other good news is that catches of deepwater shrimp will not be subject to quota next year because for the past decade the full allocation has not been taken up.
In all cases the quotas are recommended by the Marine Research Institute which bases its findings on scientific data.
Should fisheries be closed during breeding time to allow stocks to reach more sustainable levels?
