The Government ‘Helping’ Businesses Again…

You can see them on the specials boards of new restaurants and on chalkboards propped outside bars and pubs. Foodie TikTokers are eating them by the dozen. Healthy, available for £1 and even good for the environment, oysters are experiencing a boom in popularity.

Great, right? Yes, indeed. But always remember Ronnie's nine most terrifying words in the English language... 

But the UK industry is being hampered by a row over the farming of different species, with producers saying they are struggling to expand to meet demand. Brexit has also affected the UK shellfish industry by restricting imports and exports. David Jarrad, chief executive of the Shellfish Association of Great Britain, said: “Government policy is trying to drive [the industry] into the ground … this coming year, it’s unlikely that farms will be able to restock.”

And why? 

...he warned that today’s oyster renaissance may be short-lived if policy doesn’t change, with the government’s priorities focused on rehabilitating native reefs while farmers are tied up in red tape.

Regulations can restrict farm expansion unless farmers use triploid Pacific oysters, which are sterile and unable to reproduce, if they pose a risk to protected marine sites. They also prohibit new oyster farms north of 52 degrees latitude – around Ipswich – to prevent Pacifics spreading in the wild where they don’t already live.

We are, apparently, attempting to prevent a delicious food source from proliferating around our waters. We truly don't deserve to survive.  

However, when Pacific oysters were introduced to UK waters in the 1960s, it was under the mistaken belief that they couldn’t reproduce due to cool temperatures. Warming waters caused by climate change have resulted in oyster larvae escaping farms through waterways and colonising coastal habitats. This has particularly been a problem in Devon and Cornwall, where 150,000 oysters were culled to control feral oyster reefs obstructing mud flats, creating problems for fish and bird species.

Yes, the government, the one that bleats constantly about the need for the public to have cheap, nutritious non-junk food available, wasted 150,000 perfectly edible oysters to protect non-edible fish, birds and shellfish.