Faroese cod quota on Flemish Cap falls by 650 tonnes

The Faroese cod quota on the Flemish Cap fishing grounds will fall by 650 tonnes next year, KVF reports, dropping from 3,433 tonnes this year to 2,783 tonnes.

The cut is nearly 20 per cent. Members of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) set the total allowable catches and quota shares at their annual meeting last week.

“Under the circumstances, the quota was made as large as possible,” said Stefan í Skorini, director of the Faroese Shipowners’ Association. The quota rose significantly for 2026 compared with previous years, so a reduction this time was not unexpected, he said.

While the cod quota is falling, shrimp fishing is set to resume on the Grand Bank fishing grounds, where a fishing ban has been in place since 2015. The Faroes received 1.1 per cent of the total quota, equivalent to 18 tonnes.

The Faroes have repeatedly objected to how shrimp quotas are divided among NAFO members. Their position is that they received too small a share in a provisional allocation made in 1999, despite having historical catch records to cite.