Hughs Fish Fight

[Storm™]

Hi folks for all those that missed Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's latest programme/campaign here are some quick details.

Basically for the last 10 years or so our fisherman are given quoter's. If they happen to catch more than their quoter they have to throw it back by European Law. This seems to make sense however they nets are designed to catch all fish. This too is obvious. However the crunch comes when Europe have given them huge quoters for say pollock in a known Cod area. Huge numbers of cod are being caught with only a few pollock. Instead of raising the cod quoter for that area they insist on our fisherman throwing it back. Thousands of tonnes every year. In order to make money they have to complete the pollock quoter but fish more often. In the process depleting other fish species. Its a joke. For more facts on this watch channel 4 tonight at 9pm and to watch the episode aired last night click here:

http://tiny.cc/bkpoz - channel 4OD fish fight episode 1

to sign petition (which is a little hard to find) click here:

http://www.fishfight.net/ - change EU quoter system petition

follow them on twitter @hughsfishfight or tweet #hughsfishfight to get it trending. Yet another European joke. Watch that programme and it will shock you the waste mind. So ya been warned and thanks for your time.

Tonight Hugh takes on Tesco (yet again why am I surprised).

 

[Nellie]

I managed to miss this unfortunately.

A cursory glance at how fishing grounds are "managed" reveals the ridiculous nature of the whole affair on a global scale not just locally but when we're so far removed from any knowledge about how our food is produced I do think programmes like these are important (and Jamie Oliver's too much as I find him hard not to dislike).

I recall an article a few years back looking into the resistance on a global scale to start to take this seriously. Basically it stemmed from global take tonnage increasing year on year despite local reports of decreasing yields or stocks collapsing totally. Someone finally figured out that the chinese government had mandated a yearly % increase on yields which was duly being reported despite actual takes decreasing. But I digress.

The quota system in the UK is just bonkers. Throwing back fish that are already dead because the quota's been exceeded is plain stupid.

On a general basis the way we treat the seas is unbelievable but it's out of sight, out of mind. If we farmed on land the same way, there'd be uproar, it strikes me as being akin to butchering a cow by artillery shelling the field it's currently stood in and ignoring the sheep you hit in the next field along because you were only supposed to kill the cow.

 

[Russel]

As we all know quoters were introduced in an attempt to conserve fish stock and give trawler men a "fair" bite of the apple and at a time - iirc- when trawlers were much smaller than todays factory types. Unfortunately the catch/kill all nets that are used do the opposite but the EU bureaucrats still seem to think this is best policy/action.
When you multiply the throw back by the number of trawlers carrying out this ludicrous policy it beggers belief that this was ever introduced and still carried out in our so called enlightened age.
But it's not only fish that get thrown away, there are mountains of meat, fruit, veg, milk etc discarded everyday by supermarkets and farmers though the misguided view that people must have "perfect goods" and the best before system.

 

[hedgerow pete]

it will carry on blindly as there is money and polititions involved untill like the canadians out of new brunswick when they shut the whole fishery down because the fish stocks collapsed

 

[Russel]

it will carry on blindly as there is money and polititions involved untill like the canadians out of new brunswick when they shut the whole fishery down because the fish stocks collapsed

Hi HP,

Should we rename the UK " Carry on Regardless" ?

 

[wightbees]

Also if there was no quota then they would all go and catch the higher priced fish with no attempt to catch anything else,With the quota method they are at least put off of catching there reached quota and try to catch other fish..
As with all food it's a joke the way the food industry works, when i worked in horticulture the amount of fruit being thrown away each day was just plain stupid.8 tons in one day all because the weather changed and the supermarkets didn't want it and we where not allowed to send to market (contract signed) nothing wrong with the fruit.
This is still going on now !!!

 

[hedgerow pete]

watch it whitebees other wise i will get on my soap box about the deamons of tescos.

i can never get my head around how these acts can be allowed to happen not just with the fishing my the english but by all the other countrys that rob our seas as well and as for the apples, certain sizes , certain colours no blemishes, certain insainity!!

 

[Storm™]

Last nights episode of Hughs Fish Fight which can bee seen here:

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/hughs-fish-fight/4od#3152477 contains

disturbing images captured by Greenpeace of trawlers sorting fish/dolphins/sharks etc... definning features etc... to be honest I have seen more care and thought towards the handling of rubble on a building site than these animals, however there we are, humans.

Also featured in the programme, though no conclusion seen until tonights episode, is Tesco. Tesco (unsuprisingly) feature with their Dolphin friendly tinned tuna. A check of the serial number on one tin on google takes the investigators to a company which tins the tuna caught. The company use specific fishing vessels and a method called Perseining (a very large net roughly 2 miles long) to retrieve tuna from deep water. They are lured to specific areas using floating platforms in their thousands. These floating platforms creat an artificial feature/structure in an otherwise featureless landscape (the deep ocean) and this causes small fish to congregate there. Once this happens it in turn causes larger species - tuna, shark, dolphin, turtles to go there looking for food. Once this happens along come the big trawlers and reel them in in their thousands of tonnes. They are contracted for tuna and so all else - apart from shark fins - is discarded overboard dead or dying. Turtles are air breathers as are dolphins and need to surface to gain oxygen. Unlike sharks. Trapped in the netting they die.

Following the tins serial number to the tinning factory and then to the catching vessel the fishermen responsible are asked questions about what they catch. The investigators are shown the discard which is a nondescript large heap of large fish in a big pile of netting. But explain in detail that as well as the contracted Tuna, that dolphins and turtles and sharks and rays are all caught in the process. In a toe curling moment as one of the fishermen explains, the camera pans back to show that his colleague is wearing a Tesco T shirt.

However Tesco and I assume others, use these companies and proudly declare dolphin friendly on their tins. I beg to differ. On receiving the footage Hugh shows the prgramme to the Tesco chap who looks shocked but flails with "well I would need to see the evidence". Did he go blind and deaf when he was shown the footage.

At the end of the programme the official line from Tesco is "we have seen the footage and investigated and it is our findings that on very rare occasions other stuff is caught but it is always returned to the sea unharmed and free from trauma." Aside from that dead heap of stuff on the deck then, and all those shark fins laying about.

Annnnnyyyyyyywaaayys are we even surprised. Lied to Again. Shocker. One day they are going to do something so abominable, so gut wrenchingly bad that it will crush them. But while we condone things like this below and beware these are very disturbing images and I mean disturbing

Faroe Islands Denmark Coming of age rite apparently:

http://tiny.cc/bz7ki

The latest fancy food dish

http://tiny.cc/aa8cy

Or this - the most disgusting disregard for animal life I have ever witnessed:

http://tiny.cc/2hftl


Then to be honest we will never give a monkey's as long as we can have our life all nice and wonderful.

 

[Hombre]

I watched both the episodes of Hughes Fish Fight and found it to be interesting. A refreshing change from being lambasted by B . . . you know who about pesticides. Perhaps he should seek some informative footage too to put across the point without causing glazed eyes in his audience.

 

[hedgerow pete]

i like the one where he and the other two chefs got together to do the chicken run series

 

[Somerford]

A few thoughts.....

I am a fan of HF-W, he does challenge the view that we should eat what the supermarkets give us, and I was lucky enough to receive a 10 DVD box set of his programmes for Christmas.

However, while he tried to raise awareness of the issues of Chicken farming with his chicken out campaign, he made a number of errors when he ran his own flock which would have seen him unable to supply and also probably close down his flock as it didn't meet the latest requirements....however, he did raise a good point and that is are we prepared to continue paying money for cheap meat, regardless of how good it is ?

I say this with one eye on the papers today yet again desribing the huge rises in commodity prices over the past year and the 40% increase in grain prices....all this has a huge impact on animal feed and therefore the value chicken will soon be the price of the elmwood organic.....

I digress, the Fish series is an excellent one, and he hasn't so far raised the politcial issue that fishermen have been well aware of since quotas were introduced and that to sort the whole issue out we need to leave the EU, as it is they that have ensured out own sovereign waters are overfished by others, when we could have managed them very well by ourselves !

I do think times are changing....you only have to look at the frozen fish sections of the food aisle to see where once were packets of Cod fish fingers, are now white fish fingers, even from established brands.

The fish with the biggest increase in volume last year was.....wait for it.....River Cobbler, farmed in Vietnam, and sold as a VALUE product in Tesco ! I wonder what the methods are like, and what additives are used in the feed, and antibiotics for that matter ?

This series is commendable, and I hope some good comes of it. I for one have a lower freezer full of markerel and pollock I caught by line off the South Coast last summer, but the real issue is demand. There are too many of us on the planet to feed us all and sustain the rates of population growth with the food production we are currently able to produce. We need a plague, floods, famine, pestilence and disease to take us back to BC/AD 0 levels of 200 million, the planet will no doubt deliver on this.

S

 

[Storm™]

Yep watched those - Hughes Chicken Out campaign. I ate any chicken that was put in front of me before that. I eat all food groups. However now educated about how the chicken is produced I only eat free range organic. Eggs too. Make my own buscuits and cakes and pies so I don't pay into the wet egg industry cycle of things as well. Do I feel healthier yep, placebo affect - probably, do I feel morally better - yep. It Gauls me that I felt feel guilty about what was happening and yet I would never condone it knowingly. Very few would. And yet I merrily payed into it and it took someone else's determination to bring it kicking and screaming into the public domain. At this point you have a choice. I chose to avoid what I consider a crime. Should others? Not my choice to make. However any pleb who whines on about proof - balanced opinion - facts - science etc and demands to be convinced to the enth degree and argues the toss on forums for the sake of "debate", regarding treatment of animals or food welfare given what has already been exposed is just a waste of oxygen. I really believe that. I see it on forum after forum. It's embarrassing really. And it's always about emotive subjects like animal welfare, religion, or race. It's quite disappointing. This forum however is freakishly thin on the ground of people like that. Which is why I like it so much. It seems the quest for knowledge is the most emotive objective here, mostly. And for that I am thankful as this is the only beekeeping forum of any note. The rest lack any heart IMHO.*

 

[Hivemaker.]

I hate shop bought chicken and mushroom pie's as well....after seeing the conditions some of those mushrooms are grown in.

 

[psafloyd]

We'd given up on chicken as it was always so stringy.

Then we had some free range and organic stuff, so would buy it when reduced as it is dear.

But now you can get it much cheaper (not organic) or semi-free range and it is always tasty and tender. Just like it used to be as my old man would say.

You can even get a good 1.5kg free range chicken from Aldi for a fiver. You can't beat it.

 

[davethegas]

"When the last river has been polluted, the last tree felled, the last animal shot and the last fish caught, then man will find out that he cannot survive by eating money." (or something like that) Dtg.

 

[Storm™]

I hate shop bought chicken and mushroom pie's as well....after seeing the conditions some of those mushrooms are grown in.

Brilliant lol. Really made me laugh that.

 

[davethegas]

Yeah, terrible conditions, kept in the dark and fed bul#¥§it. Sounds familiar. Lol. Dtg.

 

[psafloyd]

I don't particularly like hi. In fact, at times I find him exceedingly annoying and patronising to boot. Particularly how he has rescued the countryside from its ignorance of its past. There's a sight more to it than that and I find his messianic portrayal trying.

That said, I agree with almost everything he says about food and I love his recipes. I love cooking and preserving, but I like simplicity most of all. He is very good at ignoring all the mucking about so loved of those who want to show how clever they are (yawn) or make money by endorsing products (ker-ching, Delia).

I like Nigel Slater's recipes and books a lot, too, though I doubt I could spend More than five minutes with him.

 

[BKF Admin]

My wife has just finished reading NS books,she said she really enjoyed them.

 

[hedgerow pete]

the one thing that realy gets my goat with HFW is that the big mouthed twit went around telling all the flippin townies that there was free great tasting food in the country side that was not delivered or wrapped in plastic.

ever since then my hedgerow foraging goes up and down as to whether or not some HFW git has nicked all my black berries or not and as for crab apples some git has twice striped my trees now and i am getting fed up, hes a big blabber mouth that has spoilt all my fun