Below is a letter to Fisheries Minister Darin King from the Fisheries Community Alliance
January25th/2012
Hon.Darin King,
Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture,
St. John's, NL
Dear Minister,
Over the last few weeks the request of OCI to export unprocessed fish
and the expected response of our Government have occupied the minds of fishery
participants in the Province. We understand your decision will be made public
in the near future and we therefore wish to consolidate the views of the
Fisheries Community Alliance on the subject and inform the Minister
accordingly.
1) Following detailed
discussions with marketing experts in Europe, North America and Asia we have
identified the current state of resources in various fish exporting countries and the demands of the
main importers and exporters of fish products by species in those
countries. There is no doubt there is a market for round fish for
direct consumption in Asia, especially for small, undersized round
fish. But that market has existed for the centuries. There is also a
market for large fish that is processed into finished products for the
US or EU market and the value of which is increased through injection
of 15/20 percent water into fillets. We can provide you with the formula
used in
Asia.
2) The quality of exports of Asian seafood products is now
being seriously questioned by US authorities and a US Senate
Committee is about to be formed to deal with problem.
3) There was and still is a very strong market for processed
primary and secondary fishery products in Europe, the US, Canada, Asia
and some South American Countries. There are well over a one and half
billion people in those countries who are sophisticated seafood
consumers paying prices far exceeding
those in China or Vietnam. There should not be a problem in that market to sell a miniscule quantity of
yellowtail fillets if a N&L fish exporter had an effective
marketing and sales
organization.
4) The Deloitte verification of OCI losses must be further
investigated. Not as far as its accuracy is concerned but the question is,
does it include the costs of its FFT harvesting, landing frozen
fillets in Bay Roberts and later trucking to Marystown plant. Then having
thawed the fish, processed it in the largest and most expensive plant
in N&L in terms of fixed costs, the operators surely had to know it
would be difficult to compete with harvesting by an efficient
wet-fish trawler and processing in a smaller and far less expensive plant.
This would have avoided exporting badly needed N&L processing jobs.
5) Exporting unprocessed
fish by OCI will result in a mass demand by all harvesters to export their catch and the resultant loss
of thousands of plant processing jobs. That loss will be permanent and we
will lose the processing expertize that has taken 70 years to develop
and train those workers.
6) The growing export of unprocessed fish which includes an
increased percentage of small, undersized fish will destroy any hope
whatever of rebuilding our once huge groundfishery. It is an undeniable fact that without restoration of the groundfishery fishing communities
in N&L will not survive. Federal and Provincial authorities by granting
the licenses to export large and small, undersized fish are contributing
to the demise of the N&L fishery. The Province must take a
leadership role in stopping this activity and seriously promoting the resource
rebuilding process by confronting the Canadian Government on major
issues being discussed in the Free Trade negotiations with the EU, NAFO
fisheries mismanagement and DFO reduction in N&L fisheries
management
responsibilities and particularly in the area of fishery
science capability and the retention of necessary top level
scientists and technologists.
We sincerely hope our Government will take into
consideration the major impact the continuation of exports of unprocessed fish will
have on the fishing population of N&L. We, the members of the
Fisheries Community Alliance are convinced it will eventually destroy what's
left of our diminishing resource and the survival of many N&L
fishing communities.
Yours very truly,
Gus Etchegary
Gus Etchegary
Chair
Fisheries Community Alliance.
1 comment:
Sue, these people have been arguing with governments on these issues for years and making many of the same points. My question is why government has wilfully ignored the smaller community- processing plants and harvesters in recent years.
It almost seems like a conspiracy theory but, if you remove the small harvester from the equation and then the small fish plants, you can argue that the fishery as we knew it, is no longer sustainable.....there is no market, the processing costs are too expensive, and so forth. That may be true for OCI but who is to say their way is most cost-effective and the most efficient way.
I have always contended that mass production is not necessarily the most efficient or cost-effective way to harvest primary resources. Other circumstances, not easily measured, often come into play but our governments are enamoured of these large corporate entities and their mega-projects.
This mindset is very detrimental to the sustainability of small towns and small harvesting and processing operations. These kinds of operations will produce a more sustainable industry but they are not popular with governments, who apparently want to herd us all into larger centres.
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