The cost of cheap fish

[Decourcy]

Reading an article this morning on the CBC website discussing the mortality rate amongst international high seas fishing fleets. Pretty stunning. And it’s not (mostly) about accidents so much as about the violence committed between boats and fleets. Part of it was about some cell phone footage found on a lost cell left in a taxi in Fiji, where a group of fishermen floating in the sea were shot and killed by other fishermen. Fleets stripping the last of a resource either to feed their own country, or to supply us with cheap fish protein at wall mart. International waters makes law almost moot.

Im pretty disgusted with people as a whole right now.

[Osborne Russell]

But . . . but . . . my boat payment. I'm an entrepreneur. Dying breed. No one will take my place; no one could, if they wanted to. Only me. Besides, I'm ethnic.

Only I can fix it. -- Donald Trump

[CK 17]

Reading an article this morning on the CBC website discussing the mortality rate amongst international high seas fishing fleets. Pretty stunning. And it’s not (mostly) about accidents so much as about the violence committed between boats and fleets. Part of it was about some cell phone footage found on a lost cell left in a taxi in Fiji, where a group of fishermen floating in the sea were shot and killed by other fishermen. Fleets stripping the last of a resource either to feed their own country, or to supply us with cheap fish protein at wall mart. International waters makes law almost moot.

Im pretty disgusted with people as a whole right now.

Growing what you eat is better for you and the planet.

[Paul Pless]

i have found it difficult to grow anything in az, much less fish

[Gordon Bartlett]

How would higher fish prices make the fishermen any less agressive?

[Decourcy]

How would higher fish prices make the fishermen any less agressive?

Cheap labour is desperate labour.

[L.W. Baxter]

where there is no law enforcement, there is no law.

[SKIP KILPATRICK]

i have found it difficult to grow anything in az, much less fish

Unil recently the Arizona Framers haven’t had your problem. Increasingly they may share your opinion. (Although….yeah not too many fish farms in AZ)

[L.W. Baxter]

i have found it difficult to grow anything in az, much less fish

[SKIP KILPATRICK]

The Oyster Wars were a series of sometimes violent disputes between oyster pirates and authorities and legal watermen from Maryland and Virginia in the waters of the Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River from 1865^[1] until about 1959.

[Osborne Russell]

i have found it difficult to grow anything in az, much less fish

Plant cactus seeds, wait 500 years. Or alfalfa, from the mighty, inexhaustible Colorado. Profit in this quarter's statement.

Fish, you been in the sun too long.

Paul, you need to go to Death Valley, to see the cave where the pupfish lives on, living remnant of Lake Manley -- white hero -- where the diplodocus drank and lounged in the wet sand, and the icthyosaur swam. Now a F ing hole in the ground, but, the fish are there still. See, and know. Geologic time. F Las Vegas, California, Arizona, Mexico, the entire drainage basin -- entirely. Long live the pupfish. Homo sapiens? Pfft.

Wait til winter to go. It's a SOB. They don't call it Death Valley for nothing.

[Gordon Bartlett]

Cheap labour is desperate labour.

I'm still not grasping the link between low prices and violent agressiveness. It's usually the other way around.
Seems like the cause is simply the scarcity of fish.
Anyway, I didn't see the article. How are the prices being kept low on a diminishing commodity? Is it just competition among the fishermen themselves, or is there some darker force at work?

[Paul Pless]

perhaps raising prices on fish will reduce the demand for fish
less demand for fish means less fishing for fish
means less pressure on a diminishing resource

[Decourcy]

I'm still not grasping the link between low prices and violent agressiveness. It's usually the other way around.
Seems like the cause is simply the scarcity of fish.
Anyway, I didn't see the article. How are the prices being kept low on a diminishing commodity? Is it just competition among the fishermen themselves, or is there some darker force at work?

The fleets are from mostly third world countries, owned by multinationals. The crew are hired on the basis of the cheapest labour cost and if they don’t catch fish they don’t get paid. So they are desperate, to be able to feed their families. As the fish become scarcer, the price should be rising steadily, but we live in a big-box world where the multinational retailer/wholesaler set the price, not the fisherman, and it’s always a race to the bottom. There is always a more desperate person out there to hire, if the “only desperate” person working now complains too much.
Very much like freighter crews. Badly paid, badly treated, on badly maintained ships registered in whatever country let’s you get away with it. But as long as we have cheap Amazon products who cares.


The dark force is us, and our demand for cheap

[Decourcy]

perhaps raising prices on fish will reduce the demand for fish
less demand for fish means less fishing for fish
means less pressure on a diminishing resource

This

[Gordon Bartlett]

perhaps raising prices on fish will reduce the demand for fish
less demand for fish means less fishing for fish
means less pressure on a diminishing resource

Well, yes, of course.
My question is, why is this not already happening? What hidden force is keeping fish prices down?
Normally, prices rise when supply weakens.

[Gordon Bartlett]

The fleets are from mostly third world countries, owned by multinationals. The crew are hired on the basis of the cheapest labour cost and if they don’t catch fish they don’t get paid. So they are desperate, to be able to feed their families. As the fish become scarcer, the price should be rising steadily, but we live in a big-box world where the multinational retailer/wholesaler set the price, not the fisherman, and it’s always a race to the bottom. There is always a more desperate person out there to hire, if the “only desperate” person working now complains too much.
Very much like freighter crews. Badly paid, badly treated, on badly maintained ships registered in whatever country let’s you get away with it. But as long as we have cheap Amazon products who cares.


The dark force is us, and our demand for cheap

Decourcy, thanks.
You answered my question before I submitted my last post.

[sonofswen]

i have found it difficult to grow anything in az, much less fish

They do tribalism and resentment pretty well....

[Paul Pless]

Well, yes, of course.
My question is, why is this not already happening? What hidden force is keeping fish prices down?
Normally, prices rise when supply weakens.

the tragedy of the commons

[Norman Bernstein]

I saw an interesting story about the depletion of menhaden, recently. They're fished to provide a protein that ultimately gets used as fish meal in things like dog food, or to feed farm-raised fish. It's an oily, bony fish, unsuitable for human consumption... my now deceased lobsterman friend told me that he preferred menhaden as bait for his traps, because it stayed relatively 'fresh' in a big plastic barrel on his lobsterboat, for a long time.

Menhaden is a fish favored by pelagic species, so it's a step on the food chain. Remove one step, and....

[Decourcy]

the tragedy of the commons

Yes, exactly.

But ironically, that phrase doesn’t mean what most people believe it means. It actually applies to the time when the aristocracy enclosed and claimed the common land used by average people for generations, turning relatively free people into serfs. That was the tragedy. And we have done the same by handing out oceans and the bounty over to international profit generating machines, the new aristocracy.

[Paul Pless]

Remove one step, and....

soylent green is people

we'll get there one day

[Ian McColgin]

For those interested in the lack of legal safety in too many off-shore industries, read "The Outlaw Ocean" but Ian Urbina.

Urbina, by the way, is a brilliant journalist but royalties complaints by participants in multimedia projects might tarnish his reputation.

[David W Pratt]

Yes, exactly.

But ironically, that phrase doesn’t mean what most people believe it means. It actually applies to the time when the aristocracy enclosed and claimed the common land used by average people for generations, turning relatively free people into serfs. That was the tragedy. And we have done the same by handing out oceans and the bounty over to international profit generating machines, the new aristocracy.

Encyclopedia Brittanica does not mention that. They describe it as users of a common resource acting to privatize gains and socialize costs.

[Canoeyawl]

Encyclopedia Brittanica does not mention that. They describe it as users of a common resource acting to privatize gains and socialize costs.

Search> "Enclosure"

[bluedog225]

Pretty sure Chinese fisherpeople are a major player. We need to stop feeding the dragon.

[Paul Pless]

mitsubishi controls sixty percent of the japanese tuna market
they manipulate the world price for tuna by buying and hoarding as much as they can
currently they have six years worth of frozen sushi grade tuna in their warehouses

[Ian McColgin]

The enclosure acts basically privatized common grazing lands and destroyed the agricultural class who depended on the commons.

The enclosures had nothing to do with the thought experiment/economic observation known as 'the tragedy of the commons'. The tragedy of the commons is the dilemma that it's in each herder's interest to maximize that herd but at some point if everyone maximizes they will collectively over-graze.

[skuthorp]

Drip, drip drip.

Not with a bang but with a whimper is ny forecast

[Decourcy]

The enclosure acts basically privatized common grazing lands and destroyed the agricultural class who depended on the commons.

The enclosures had nothing to do with the thought experiment/economic observation known as 'the tragedy of the commons'. The tragedy of the commons is the dilemma that it's in each herder's interest to maximize that herd but at some point if everyone maximizes they will collectively over-graze.

That is the modern meaning for the phrase, yes. But not the original.

[Katherine]

I have grown weary of the human race.

[John B]

I think I probably saw the footage referenced in the Op, about 7 or 10 years ago I think.
The subject always brings to mind the recent piracy period off Somalia, ships , cruising boats etc.
Kicked off by the super trawlers clear felling their fishing grounds/ reserve of course.

[sonofswen]

mitsubishi controls sixty percent of the japanese tuna market
they manipulate the world price for tuna by buying and hoarding as much as they can
currently they have six years worth of frozen sushi grade tuna in their warehouses

green around the grills? Mitsubishi hoards frozen bluefin tuna June, 2009

I mean, how long is that good for? Sold a year later when the price is down? I don't think that's Sushi grade.

• Dato: 06/06/2009
• kl. 00:00

• Kategori: News

• Land: Japan

[J.Madison]

We are a species of farmers. Farms built civilization, it could not have happened hunting and gathering. These are the last gasps of industrialized hunting. In a century, will we still be pulling this much wild protein out of the sea? I doubt it very much.

[Domesticated_Mr. Know It All]

I have grown weary of the human race.