Daily Mail-style rant? Hopefully the opposite.

[cheekbones3]

Apparently numerous fishermen are complaining that they lose money every time they leave port, and are therefore thinking of blockades as a protest about fuel costs etc.

 

Call me stupid, but wouldn't it be more sensible if they didn't set out fishing until it's economically viable? "Duh, the fuel for the boat is going to cost more than the price I'll get for what I catch. I'll set out anyway and whinge about it later."

 

Might even be some fish to catch if they take some time off...

Comments

[hughe.livejournal.com]

i dont think its just the fuel, though, its probably ongoing costs and wages too.
very simplistic:

fuel         -6000
wages        -6000
office rent   -500
fish        +10000
------------------
gone fishin  -2500

wages        -6000
office rent   -500
------------------
stay in port -6500

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

A fair point!

[gnomatron.livejournal.com]

Not entirely - wages for fishing boats are paid on a casual/profitshare basis, so no trip means no wages, and the skipper of any given boat won't have an office to pay for, as they'll do any office work from home. Mind you there will be fixed costs, harbour dues, basic boat upkeep, that sort of thing. Not to mention that they'll have a mortgage to pay and a family to feed.

Still, I think that if an industry is as inefficient and low-demand as fishing in this country then it's probably time to let it die.

[hughe.livejournal.com]

yeah the per trip/profitshare thing did occur to me after posting that. I think their point is it would be profitable if there wasn't so much tax on their fuel, but doesn't sound like it would be too profitable anyway. or that they are paying an unfair percentage of tax (perhaps compared to the people who make the tax decisions) of their turnover, just because their business relies on fuel. *shrug* Then there is the whole "UK government wiping out the historic fishing villages" thing, and then all the fish would be imported which would be worse for the economy and tax situation.

[wee0ne.livejournal.com]

The whole fuel thing isn't just the "boat out in the water" cost:

The wholesaler/distributor has fuel costs to get the catch from the harbour to their clearing-house, and then from their clearing-house to their customers.

This means that the 8-pence-per-litre rise in fuel (6%, if you want to know) we've had in the past three weeks has to be applied three times:
1) Boat out fishing
2) Harbour to Warehouse
3) Warehouse to Retailer

How can inflation still be at 2% when all our costs for distribution have had a 6% hike in fuel bills?

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Depends what percentage of the total costs come from distribution....

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

It's certainly a point that fishing and agriculture get an unduly high profile relative to their actual worth to the economy. Conversely, it could almost be seen as a social fund to keep those industries afloat.

[llamarines.livejournal.com]

a) Catch LESS FISH
b) twofold results - 1) fish more expensive 2) more fish in the sea overall
c) more money per trip
d) profit

not difficult, fishermen.

[guyinahat.livejournal.com]

This is pretty much how it gets resolved.
Problem is that a) involves a percentage of the industry going bust. It therefore needs politicians to legislate, but they lack the backbone.

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

Backbone boils down to the disproportionate media profile they manage to hang on to I suppose...

[guyinahat.livejournal.com]

We need much tighter quotas set in the EU. The problem is every year the environmental scientists advise on what the quotas should be to avoid stocks collapsing, then get over-ruled by the politicians. The french fishermen will blocade major ports at the drop of a hat.

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

Yep.

[wee0ne.livejournal.com]

I tell you what: how about letting most of the fishing industry go bust; the farming industry die off; and the haulage industry fail....

We can live by importing all our food; and use overseas companies to distribute the goods once they land at a UK dock.... not a problem!

.... or is there a flaw in that?

[guyinahat.livejournal.com]

It doesn't require most of the fishing industry to go bust. If the price of fish is too low, the way to bring it up is less supply.

As for the farming industry, I thought they were back in the cash with the price of food going through the roof.

I don't see the haulage industry dying either. It's not as if people are gonna stop needing trucks. Again, if road freight prices are too low, uncompetitive operations may go bust, but the price will then go up as trucks become a bit more scarce. There is limited scope for international divers filling up on the continent and competing for work here, especially in Scotland.

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

One of the main arguments the truck drivers keep giving on telly is that foreign truckers are now allowed to work in any EU country - hence lots of truckers filling up in Luxembourg, dropping off in the UK, picking up a new load and driving it somewhere else in the UK, then driving off home again. On cheaper costs.

I'll have a chat with a farmer about what he thinks of higher food prices next time I'm on site - I'm quite interested in hearing what they say! I speak regularly with a mixed organic farmer and a hill shepherd farmer, as well as a lazy-ass old farmer who owns some fields near the M8 and does f*ck all with them except think up mental money making schemes so he can continue doing f*ck all.

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

I can tell you now what the farmers will say - whinging will be involved...

[guyinahat.livejournal.com]

You do get some truckers doing that, but it's limited. They have to be coming here anyway otherwise the cost of the trip isn't economic. Also, diesel prices are going up by the same amount all over Europe, so recent price rises won't make the Foreign trucks any cheaper by comparison.

[wee0ne.livejournal.com]

Sheep sell for £50 each; Cattle are better, they can go for about £800 each (see these prices)
Barley is about £160 a tonne at the moment.

Now you know why sheep-farms are dying: How do you make a profit on £50 a skull, given the investment needed to husband them?

Yes, there is a surge in food-prices, but it's all fueled (if you forgive the pun) by the cost of diesel: getting livestock in & out the farm; getting vets, staff, chemicals, mechanics, fencing materials, and general sundries etc in & out the farm; shipping the final product off the farm & into the start of the processing chain.... believe me, there isn't money going into the farmers pocket...

[guyinahat.livejournal.com]

Well presumably farmers everywhere are facing the same rise in the price of oil? I expect New Zealand lamb will become a lot more expensive as the shipping costs go through the roof.

Also, as the tax here is a fixed amount per litre rather than a percentage, as oil prices go up, the relative tax burden here goes down. I percentage increase to costs would therefore be greater in somewhere like the US.

Grain is also becoming a new fashionable comodity to invest in, just as oil did (causing the price rise). So if farmers who are able switch to that do so, supply of livestock would also decrease, driving up the price.

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

Trouble is, most livestock (apart from dairy) is on land unfit for grain.

[guyinahat.livejournal.com]

Just as well we have CAP then!

I reckon a change in the stupid greenbelt protection laws would be a good start. Make it easier for farmers to turn land into housing and they'd have an alternative source of iocome to fund getting out of the industry when it slumps. Also, if land for housing wasn't so incredibly hard to create, housing wouln't be anywhere near as over-priced as it is.

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

Farming's very balanced for 2007 - income went up strongly last year (for arable farmers), but these increases were tempered by strong increases in fertiliser (Autumn onwards), fuel and feed costs. Since fertiliser costs appear to have almost trebled in the first quarter of this year (blame Chinese tariffs and fuel costs), and feed and fuel costs are continuing to strengthen, farm profits and maybe yields I suspect may take a hit this year. Shame I'm moving post before I'll get a chance to publish the figures!

[guyinahat.livejournal.com]

Next year should be more interesting still, as grain (and others) are becoming a fashionable commodity for speculators. Grain futures are where it's at...

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

I've certainly heard that people are piling into agric land as an investment. As for grain, I do expect it to stay high, especially while the EU and others stick to their biofuels policy.

[guyinahat.livejournal.com]

The driver is the futures market - people are buying up crops at high prices on the theory that prices are going to go up even more. They'll make a killing until the bubble bursts...

[llamarines.livejournal.com]

I'm from an extremely rural community. Like, as rural as you can get. I am not by any means a city kid - and yet farmers complaining always rings extremely hollow for me.

When I used to work in the pub, I remember a farmer complaining because the beef crisis in 2001 meant he had to take one of this three BMW's off the road.

[kynon.livejournal.com]

Price of fish has to go up markedly for that principle to work.

Also, if "our" fishermen stay home, some other fucker will go & fish "our" fish, and then they'll end up even more fucked than they were to start with.

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

Trouble is, them buggers over the sea keep cheating, and we, being British enforce the rules!

[fizzyboot.livejournal.com]

If they can't make money fishing, why don't they do something else for a living? It's not as if they've got some right to earn a living by doing a particular activity.

(If, on the other hand, there is such a right, then I demand the right to earn my living by reading slashdot and looking at pron all day -- and fisherman should be taxed to enable this)

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

Last time I was home, Look North did a feature on Amble harbour where skippers are now having to employ people from the Philippines because no local men will take the low wages. There was also skippers regularly catching way over their quota, and admitting to it on television, because "they have to make a living" Fishermen seem entirely unable to grasp the basic concept that if YOU TAKE ALL THE FISH YOU WON'T HAVE A LIVING.

Cod is extinct around Canada, and very nearly so in the North Sea - the stuff we eat is from around Iceland. Fish stocks in the North Sea suffered a complete and catastrophic collapse a few years ago. Yet on they go! It's tragedy of the commons stuff, the idea that if they don't take everything and make a profit, someone else will.

For a really good tale on human stupidity re: fishing, see what you can find out about the Orange Roughy.

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

(OK, google is not helpful about the Orange Roughy and just gives recipes for the "delicious" fish. They found this fish on seamounts, which are mountains in the middle of the sea, which are like oasises of life in the desert. Vast shoals of Orange Roughy congregate at them. Orange Roughy lives for ~70 (possibly up to 150) years, and has a very slow reproductive cycle, few eggs, and don't become mature until age 20. The fisheries decide to catch these by bottom dredging - dragging a huge metal-bottomed net along the sea floor, which scrapes up and kills everything that get caught in it.

It's absolutely sickening - the Orange Roughy is fast becoming extinct, as are millions of other species on the seamounts. To eat a fish that lives to be 125 years old! They only discovered the fish about 25 years ago! And it's nearly extinct!

Last I checked Marine Science, everyone was fairly agreed that the world's seas will be dead within 50 years.

GOd, I forgot how ranty I get about fish... (<has degree in Marine Biology)

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

Looks like I should do more posts about fishing - it's the best response I've had in ages!

And aye, like so much in a democratic system, short-term thinking dominates and stifles any sort of sense.

[llamarines.livejournal.com]

I get incredibly pissed off about this too. There need to be quota reductions, MASSIVE fines for going substantially over quota - losing your boat levels of fines - a ban on dredging, a huge incentive to open fish farms and a very well funded EU agency (akin to the US Coastguard) that keeps a strict eye on everything.

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

As far as I know, the old roughy has such a long life-cycle that it's been fished out of viability in a very short space of time...

[guyinahat.livejournal.com]

Kinda lucky we lost all the Cod Wars. I hate to think what state Icelands fish stock would be in now otherwise...

[ghostsmut.livejournal.com]

Why go fishing? They sell them at Tesco.

[ghostsmut.livejournal.com]

Oh and sorry, it wasn't a Daily Mail style because you didn't blame the foreigners who work for nothing and take the jobs off decent hard working Englishmen. ;)

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

I also forgot to mention MPs not worrying about votes of future junkies too...

[0olong.livejournal.com]

You probably saw this piece, right? You beat Monbiot to the punch by a few weeks there...

(surprised to realise I'd never added you on LJ till now!)

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

Can't remember what put me onto the subject, but it was possibly because I work opposite a fishing industry analyst!

I'm not sure I knew who you were on LJ, there are a lot of people in Edinburgh that I've not connected with the LJ world too...