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THERE IS A shellfish crisis in west Cork and Kerry, resulting in some of Ireland’s top quality mussels being unfit to eat.
Some bays have been forced to close down for five consecutive months, said the Irish Shellfish Association.
Many farmers have had to watch their crops wash away during the winter storms instead of fetching premiums in top supermarkets and restaurants.
Producers from Castlemaine to Dunmanus Bay have been impacted, largely as a result of highly unusual algal blooms this winter.
Mussel crop
The Irish Farmer’s Association’s (IFA) analysis shows that up to 10,000 tonnes of top quality mussel crop has been lost to the elements or is now unusable.
Richie Flynn, IFA’s Aquaculture Executive said the crop should have been sold in November, December and even January.
Some bays have been closed continuously since mid-2014 due to the extremely rare occurrence where algal blooms, which should have disappeared, stayed within the bays making the shellfish unsafe to consume.
Even if the bays were opened in the morning, prices have entered the annual cyclical slump and most of the crop has lost its quality appearance and size as it prepares for the spring spawning season.
By closing their harvesting operations, the mussel farmers have ensured consumers are safe, but the IFA said they have no control over the length of time these natural blooms can persist in the ocean.
Out of business
Producers are not arguing with the science or criteria which closed them down, but the IFA said many of these farmers have been out of business for many months.
Under EU rules, which recognise it can be extremely painful for producers, a special scheme to allow producers to stay in business was set up.
The IFA says the official recognition was enshrined in EU regulations over seven years ago.
It urged Minister Coveney to use these EU rules now to find a scheme to help dozens of small family businesses along the south west coast to stay in business.
This is the Minister’s chance to make a real difference and keep open as successful indigenous industry in an important economic black-spot.
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Good Morning Journal and readers, and thanks for bringing the issue to public attention.
Just by way of clarification – all shellfish production in Ireland, Europe and in The US, New Zealand and Canada is monitored for the presence of toxic algae. These are naturally occuring plankton which arrive on ocean currents and grow in inshore waters at different times of the year. 99% of algae in the Atlantic ocean is fine and good daily free and natural fodder for oysters and mussels, but we have to make sure that when the shellfish eat the toxic algae – which is harmless to them by the way – our farmers don’t unknowingly put that shellfish onto the market and make consumers ill. The best thing about this system is it works. We’ve an excellent track record intenrationally for our regime. We have a very sophisticated monitoring system of testing using mass spectrometry equipment and weekly plankton monitoring from over 50 bays around the country as early warning systems. The worst side is that as long as the algae persists, the farmer can only sit back and wait for the closure to be lifted.
So on the plus side a fair amount of the shellfish may be placed on the market if the areas are officially opened again but the shellfish will be of lower quality, being older, with rough shells and small meats which consumers naturally don’t like and which are sold at very low prices.
The other thing to say is that mussels are farmed in Ireland in Donegal, Mayo, Galway, Kerry, Cork, Wexford and Louth, so it is no surprise that some shellfish from other “open” bays are being sold quite safely. However the centre of the industry is in places like Bantry, Ardgroom, Kilmackillogue, Glengarriff, Dunmanus etc and they are the ones with the immediate problem. The producers in that part of the world are in real difficulties.
If ever you want to see an up to date map of the closures or get an up to date on a particular bay, look at the Marine Institute website in their interactive maps section under HABS (harmful Algal Blooms) http://www.marine.ie
Sorry to have bored you with the details but it’s important that people who are interested get all the facts.
Many thanks again
Richie Flynn, Executive, IFA Aquaculture
Richie Flynn, Well said and true! Would like to add that yes we have some of the cleanest waters in Europe however there are big problems. The proposed salmon farms in Galway bay and Cork will bring much disruption to the marine ecology not to mention farmed fish are no longer organic and their nutrition qualities are lowered. There is also unacceptable run off coming from are badly managed agricultural sector. From the fields finding their way into our watercourses and eventually into our coastal waters. Sewerage is also a problem in a number of places.
Be great to see the day when a Dept of Permaculture is set up to replace the existing insane agri practice which has had awful effects on both land and sea.
Used to come from the boyne too until drogheda port decided to dredge the river and the beds along with them, then the government stopped salmon fishing as well, great way to kill off the traditional livelihood of the people of mornington
Peter do you think that it would be better that the Boyne estuary should be left to silt up and ships unable to reach Drogheda port.
What the IFA are never going to tell us is that farming itself is responsible for so much pollution of our waterways and coastal regions. Algal blooms are caused by run off of the excessive use of fertilisers farmers use on their crops (as well as some evidence for global warming playing a part) – leading to the algal blooms that then suffocate all life in the water.
Eco Eye last night was horribly disturbing with its exposure of the disgusting polluted condition of many of our rivers and water tables. Basically, no matter how clean water can look in rivers and streams, it can have harmful e-coli. This they said is due both to septic tanks that are not properly maintained or emptied on time, and also to slurry farmers spread on their crops that is washed into our waterways. It is scandalous that you cannot dip your hand into an Irish river without the risk of having toxic e-coli bacteria in it . They went down with officials underground taking samples of water tables – when pollution seeps down to our underground water tables, the problem is that they feed 25% of our drinking water.
I would like to see the IFA taking a lead in stopping farming from causing so much pollution to our environment – we all have a right to unpolluted water in our rivers and reservoirs.
Chris, difficult one that. Yea the port has been there for some time. Its a place I’ve lived in the past too as I went to the old horticultural college in Termonfeckin many years ago and had friends working in that port. But.. go against nature and good science and pay the ultimate price later. That silt if full of nutrient and those beds had a purpose. Silting is the estuary healing itself surely? This country has been badly managed for centuries. Maybe put our resources into Dublin and possibly Dundalk ports instead? Someone else maybe able to clarify that?
This really is a different time we are moving into with so much knowledge, information and science at our disposal it is no longer acceptable to further the ruination of our collective ecology and health. Put sound ecological & proper scientific structures in place and we will all reap the future rewards. Have to agree with Peter.. their making a mess out of the Boyne.
Seriously, do watch this episode of Eco Eye on the scandal of our polluted waterways and ground water – it’s a very compelling and worrying programme: http://www.rte.ie/player/ie/show/10371811/
Little Diddy, Thanks for link.. will look at that pronto! It’s something I have been aware of for a long time as Horticultural college taught us all about it. From our point of view it was herbicides, pesticides and chemical fertilizers as well as excessive slurry spreading etc.
Ireland has been run by outright morons for a long time. We suffer the highest rates of so many illnesses and diseases for all of Europe.. no coincidence.
We should set-up some sort of national water company to better manage our water disposal to ensure we are not emptying our sewers directly into our valuable coastal waters.
Maybe some sort of control and registry of septic tanks would help too.
To improve things, we might have to pay for it though.
No way, won’t pay.
Or a body of government as control of our most precious resource is too valuable a resource to be put in private hands. We could call this department the department of the marine or something like that…..
It’s not ‘sewerage’ at all that’s causing the algal bloom, but all the fertiliser run off from farming…. and it’s well known it’s been building up for years & is a serious problem in other parts of the world.
The loss of mussel farm crops was always a pollution disaster waiting to happen, but non one cared if it was only marine life that suffered, not mussel farmers.
Funny the way ‘ecology’ – the circular and connected nature of life – continues to be ignored until a commercial interest suffers.
That will be the epitaph of humanity – ‘We ignored ecology, and worshipped greed, until it was too late.’
A recent EU report says that the spreading salt on the roads in winter adds to the pollution of our rivers and fresh water lakes.
Indeed Mike, we have lost 40% of our biodiversity in only the last 20 years, and we need to do more as a nation to halt this horrible destruction of the environment on which we depend for our very lives and well-being. Eco Eye last night on how polluted our waters are (from fertiliser run-off from farmers and also septic tanks) was horrific. The idea that we are a green and pleasant land is a fantasy. http://www.rte.ie/player/ie/show/10371811/
On Moore Street later today … “kilo of mussel’s only a euro”
Perhaps one might better describe the quality of the shellfish if it is considered unfit to eat.. no?
Tough on the fishermen trying to earn an honest crustacean
Get yerrrrrrrr muscles from brussellsssss fresh,only caught in the liffey this morning love
If you come across any good mussels, do share. No point being shellfish
When I was a kid I used to gather mussels and winkles from the beach and my grandmother would boil them. Funny thing is that there was one area of the beach where they were bigger. However i never realised then that this was where the towns sewer pipe ran into the sea.
I would never eat mussels now that i know what they thrive on.
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