Seafood—Why Is It Costing More?
SEAFOOD, like everything else today, costs more money. In some places it is almost as expensive as beef. Why?
There are special reasons for upward spiraling fish costs. But, in a phrase, they combine to equal this: Seafood is costing more because there is less of it. When there is great demand for a reduced supply, prices go up.
Fewer fish? Yes! Men have looked to the seas to provide food that agriculture has not supplied in sufficient quantities for the world’s growing population. But in doing so, they have clung to a fundamental misunderstanding. The seas, they have believed, contain an unlimited supply of edible fish.
Now they find that some fish species are largely exhausted, fished out of the oceans. What has been responsible?
The Effect of Fishing Equipment
For one thing, new equipment. How so? Well, in the past as men took reasonable amounts of food out of the oceans the fish replenished themselves, and the oceans stayed well stocked. But now new, highly sophisticated equipment has so intensified fishing as to bring the decline of many species.
The new equipment has included, since the mid-1950’s, specially equipped trawlers with nets that drop off the stern rather than over either side as on earlier models. This enables crewmen to haul in six times as many fish as formerly.
Further, modern trawlers, like “floating factories” with their own canning and freezing equipment aboard, are able to handle and process more fish. Some have a storage capacity of over 10,000 gross tons. Special transport boats often bring in the catch for the fishing vessels, allowing them to remain at sea. The trawler’s greatest advantage thereby becomes its ability both to travel a long distance and to stay at sea for up to a year. Hundreds of such boats operate today out of the world’s key fishing spots. With what effects? Consider one example, the eastern coast of the North American continent.
In those fishing waters, ranked as among the world’s best, are many modern trawlers, employed by the Soviet Union, Japan, Spain, Germany and other nations. Today, virtually all the species for which those waters are famous suffer from drastic overfishing. A similar situation has developed off the coast of Norway. As the fish become scarcer and competition in obtaining available fish stiffens, ever-newer technology is pressed into service. Valuable fish stocks are further depleted while, at the same time, equipment costs rise. These mounting costs are passed on to the world’s seafood consumer.
But if a modern nation did not have the latest fishing equipment, would it bring seafood prices down? No, as is shown in the U.S., which lacks modern vessels. Says W. A. Sarratt, editor of The Fish Boat: “The New England fleet is generally obsolete and therefore has difficulty competing with the modern, efficient vessels of foreign countries, which also fish its traditional grounds.” Much fish sold in the U.S. has actually been fished out of waters near American coasts, processed abroad and then sold in the U.S. market! As a result, it costs more than if it had been taken by domestic fishermen.
Now, many Americans want the country to protect their fishing waters. They call for the nation to claim more territorial fishing waters, that is, the part of the ocean that all coastal nations claim as legally their own. They argue, in effect, ‘the fish there are ours. We, not foreigners, should be able to fish them out and sell them to our own people.’
The Issue of Territorial Waters
If the U.S. were at this time greatly to extend its territorial fishing waters beyond the current twelve-mile limit, it would not be the first country to do so. Iceland, to protect its fishing-based economy, extended its territorial boundary to fifty miles, in September 1972. This precipitated a year-long “codfish war” with Great Britain, whose ships were accustomed to working those same waters.
Recently a compromise was effected between the two nations, allowing Britain a quota of fish from the challenged seas. Britain, in effect, thereby acknowledged Iceland’s right to regulate fishing in the larger coastal zone.
Other nations, too, notably those of Latin America and some in Africa, now claim 200-mile territorial fishing water limits. Trespassing vessels are heavily fined. But if the U.S. took such action, would it really bring down the prices of seafood for the average U.S. consumer?
The critics argue No. Broader territorial fishing waters, they say, will not take the place of better fishing equipment. Either way, with extended territorial waters or not, it seems that the U.S. seafood buyer will continue to put out more money for less product. Modern equipment costs money and exhausts fish supplies. Old equipment brings in smaller hauls. In the long run each method means fewer fish. And that spells higher prices.
Other Reasons for Less Seafood
Another factor contributing to higher seafood costs through a decimation of marine life is pollution. French ocean explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau estimates that during the past twenty years marine life has been reduced 40 percent due to pollution. Informed persons do not believe that he has overstated the problem.
Another reason for the seeming lack of available seafood is the consumer. Interestingly, in the Western world the “popular” varieties of fish are disappearing. Yet millions of people in the East eat fish considered “unpopular” in the West. Western fishermen often discard these because they lack market appeal. A sudden change in people’s eating tastes—something not likely to occur—could result in the simultaneous appearance of more “edible” fish.
The problems facing the world’s commercial fishermen are due for discussion at the United Nations’ Law of the Sea Conference, scheduled for this year. Nevertheless, it is apparent to all observers that the sea has not solved man’s search for food to feed earth’s growing millions. Higher costs, brought on by economic and political rivalries, have sometimes actually made seafood more difficult to obtain.