June 2021

Over 50 participants from the Mediterranean small-scale fisheries (SSF) sector, from Spain, France, Malta, Italy and Cyprus attended LIFE’s webinar last Friday 18th June. The theme was “The Pros and Cons of Crating Producer Organizations for Mediterranean Small-scale Fishers. The webinar was also attended by DG Mare.

Fish Producer Organizations (FPOs) are described as the key to achieving the objectives of the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and the Common Organization of the Markets (CMO) in fishery products. However, up to now, FPOs dedicated to small-scale fisheries are the exception, not the rule.

The Low Impact Fishers of Europe (LIFE) has therefore been encouraging its members to set up SSF POs. LIFE organized this webinar to learn from their and other experience, to understand the steps required to set up FPOs, and examine the Pros and Cons of doing so.

SSF activities differ markedly from larger scale fishery (LSF) activities, socially, economically and environmentally. Despite having strength in numbers, SSF have been marginalised over decades by successive CFPs designed for LSF management. In the Mediterranean SSF accounts for 80% of the fleet, 50% of the jobs at sea and 77% of the fishing days at sea. In terms of fish catch, although SSF only account for 14% by volume, they contribute 26% by value, highlighting the importance of value addition and the relatively high value of their products compared to LSF.

Incomes in the SSF sector are about half of what they are in the LSF, a difference which may be partly accounted for by the part time and seasonal nature of the SSF activity. Due to significantly higher catch volumes, LSF can operate on lower margins to SSF, whilst for SSF viability is highly dependent on capturing value addition. Compared to LSF, key constraints to successful SSF activities are access to resources (i.e. access to fishing rights) and access to value added markets. All this makes SSF vulnerable to shock, and so it is vital that SSF can organize themselves effectively to secure fair access to resources and access to markets and a fair price for their products.

FPOs dedicated to SSF could be game changers in this regard. SSF FPOs could also provide an opportunity for SSF to become better organized, and to engage SSF as protagonists in fisheries management and decision-making processes.

The 4 cases presented and discussed at the webinar included the following initiatives:

· the Union of Professional Small-scale Fishers from the Occitane region of France, who launched an initiative in December 2020 to establish a SSF PO for French Mediterranean low impact (artes menores) fishers.

· Artisanal Fisheries Producers Organization from the Conil Fish Auction (OPP-72), established in 2016.

· The FSK PO (Low Impact Coast Fisheries PO) from Denmark, established as a PO in 2019

· The Irish Islands Marine Resources (IIMRO) PO, recognised in February 2021, but still in process of producing a Production and Marketing Plan.

Some of the key messages:

– Creating SSF POs is very relevant, but very challenging

– Mixed POs tend to respond to demands of LSF, and not to SSF, hence need for POs dedicated to SSF.

– SSF POs are a very effective way to organize SSF, as provides official recognition and access to European funds and other support;

– Significant bureaucratic challenges, particularly as regards drafting a production and marketing plan and accessing European funding;

– Takes time to set up a PO – between 12 and 36 months;

– Getting access to funding is critical but time consuming;

– Criteria for PO recognition defined by Member States, not by the Commission.

– EU Member States now in process of drafting National Plans for European Funds 2021-2027, so important to ensure that SSF POs are high on the list of funding priorities;

– Important that SSF POs build on existing structures;

– SSF POs can take advantage of unique “SSF Brand”, associated with low environmental impact, cultural heritage, high socio-economic value, to help fishers to fish less and earn more;

Further reading: The Pros and Cons of Creating Producer Organizations (PO) for Mediterranean Small-scale Fishers in English i Spanish.

The first workshop of the 2021 SSF Forum programme focuses on best practices to create competitive economic advantages for small-scale fisheries actors along the value chain. The workshop will consist of three sessions, focusing on strategies for adding value to small-scale fisheries products, such as voluntary labelling, direct selling, fish processing and packaging; and sharing the experiences of women contributing to robust SSF value chains in the region.

The 3rd Session is organized by AKTEA, the network of women in fisheries and aquaculture.

Being a woman along the SSF value chain: real life success stories and challenges

7 July 2021, 16.30 – 18.00 (CEST)

See agenda – Registration

June 11 2021, Port La Nouvelle, France.

It was on the 12 April 2017, more than 4 years ago! That’s when we went to court to challenge the legality of the allocation mechanism for the small-scale bluefin tuna quota in France. It has been four long years of waiting for the outcome of a class action brought by French small-scale fishers and the Low Impact Fishers of Europe (LIFE).

We had almost given up on this appeal. Despite its importance, it had vanished without a trace – until now. Finally, the hearing is set for 17 June at 10 am in the Montpellier Administrative Court. However, whatever the reasons for this long and unusual delay, whatever difficulties the legal institutions may face, and despite the health crisis, our questions are still valid today, as are the rulings that will come out of the procedure.    

We had gone to court over the Ministerial Decree for the 2017 Bluefin tuna fishing season. Needless to say, this annual decree is no longer in force in 2021. However, the situation has not changed. The principles used to allocate the small-scale sector’s quota are the same. The effective international management of bluefin tuna has enabled the stock to recover and to establish the good condition of the fishery that we see today. This positive development has led to an increase in the French quota from 3,226 tonnes in 2017 to 6,026 tonnes in 2021, but its internal distribution is still very unbalanced and unclear among small-scale professionals, both in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. The limited number of licenses available does not allow for sufficient access rights to be granted to polyvalent small-scale low impact fishermen either.

This relevance of this appeal has not diminished over time. It is as important today as it was 4 years ago – not only for those who initiated it but also for a large number of small-scale fishers. And, not only in France, but also in other European countries where a similar situation exists. This appeal is not calling for a revolution or for a professional confrontation between the ‘small’ and the ‘large’ fleet segments. It simply aims to set a legal precedent for future fishing seasons, and to open up a discussion on new, fairer and more rational basis for distribution between fleet segments.

The signatories :

• Syndicat Professionnel des Pêcheurs Petits Métiers d’Occitanie (SPMO) ;
• French Small-scale Fishers Platform;
• Low Impact Fishers of Europe (LIFE) Platform ;
• Comité départemental des pêches maritimes et des élevages marins du Var ;
• Prud’homie des pêcheurs de la Ciotat (Bouches du Rhône) ;

Contact SPMO, Email: petitsmetiers18@gmail.com

Tel : Manu MARTINEZ : 06 33 10 82 04 – Bertrand CAZALET : 06 13 29 51 40

Low Impact Fishers of Europe: deputy@lifeplatform.eu; tel: +32 486368855

The winds of change are blowing: the fisheries sector needs to prepare for some coming storms, and to adapt to a carbon-free future to sustain ocean based life and fishing livelihoods.

Food produced from the oceans provides an essential source of nutrition in the form of protein, minerals, vitamins and fats, meeting people’s food needs and preferences as well as contributing to a rich diversity of food cultures around the world.

Seafood is also one of the most traded food commodities globally – and demand is growing due to increasing world population and increasing wealth. This has led to a new concept to describe seafood – “Blue Food” – so as to include seaweeds, algae and new plant-based products alongside fish and shellfish leading up to the UN 2021 Food Systems Summit. Unfortunately, whatever the merits of the concept, it obscures how and by who food from the sea is produced and consumed, and opens the way for large corporations to carve out new opportunities and displacing existing actors in the name of sustainability.

The UN Food Systems Summit intends to reshape food systems at the global level. It will launch bold new actions to transform the way the world produces and consumes food, as part of the Decade of Action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. The current state of food and agricultural systems is described as a “triple crisis” in which obesity, undernutrition, and climate change are decimating human and planetary health (The Lancet Commission on the Double Burden of Malnutrition). Dominant food and agricultural systems pose just as great a threat to the planet as they do to humans; the industrial food system is one of the largest contributors to climate change.

Sustaining seafood into the future and providing for the needs of a growing population will require a radical change in the way such food is produced and consumed. Proposals on how to transform and future proof our food systems will emerge from the UN Food Systems Summit – and we may not like what comes out.

The theme of World Oceans Day – LIFE and Livelihoods – is therefore particularly relevant for the fishing sector, providing as it does tens of millions of livelihoods globally, directly and indirectly. According to the FAO as much as 10% of the world population relies on fisheries as a source of livelihoods, mainly eking out a living from small-scale fisheries in the global South.

However, unless it can respond to some immediate, urgent, and existential challenges, the fishing sector as we know it today, risks becoming an idiosyncrasy of the past. Nowhere is this more so than in Europe, where the EU’s Green Deal has set a high bar: a carbon neutral Europe by 2050, with a new action plan to conserve fisheries resources and protect marine ecosystems in the pipeline under the 2030 biodiversity strategy. This proposes a zero-tolerance approach to illegal practices, to limit the use of fishing gear most harmful to biodiversity, notably “bottom-contacting” fishing gear, and a crack-down on by-catch – especially threatened and endangered species.

One of the biggest existential challenges facing the European fishing sector is de-carbonization. Fossil fuels are the Achilles heel of the fishing sector, which it is currently able to access tax free. The economics of fishing is highly sensitive to the price of such fuel, as highlighted by the impact of fuel price hikes on profitability following the economic crises of the early 21st century. The EU’s Energy Taxation Directive is up for review in the framework of the Green Deal, and this tax break may be about to end. Likewise, rightly or wrongly, heavy dependence on hydrocarbon polymers for its equipment has brought fishing into disrepute with environmental organizations, who cite it as a major source of plastic waste in the marine environment and of ghost fishing – with lost gear described as the “tumbleweed of the oceans”, wreaking havoc on the ocean bed, blown along by ocean currents.

In the rush to decarbonise the economy and produce green energy, there is also increasing competition to use the oceans to develop the blue economy. Increasingly the fishing sector is having to compete for space at sea and is likely to face increasing restrictions of where it can fish as the blue economy develops. Priority may be given to green energy production over extracting fish, for example.

However, all these challenges become background noise if fishers’ access to resources and access to markets is not guaranteed – as is the case for Europe’s majority fleet. In Europe, as in other parts of the world, smaller scale, less environmentally impactful fishing operations represent the majority of the fleet by numbers, and often by employment. These relatively small-scale, near to shore operations supply fresh fish on a daily basis to local communities, providing jobs, livelihoods, food supplies and economic activities, often in areas where few alternatives exist.

Over the past several decades, successive Common Fisheries Policies (CFPs) have promoted larger scale more industrial fisheries in the interests of increasing production at the expense of smaller scale fishery activities. In particular subsidies have been poured into the development of larger scale fleets, which have also benefitted from the lion’s share of fishing rights.

The EU’s smaller scale fleets (vessels under 12 metres in length using non-towed gears) represent over 70% of the active vessels and 50% of the employment, but land only 5% of the catch by weight and 15% by value. This is in part due to the way the fishing rights allocation system in general and quota allocation system in particular have been unfairly rigged. The system favours the concentration of fishing rights into relatively few hands, with allocation based on catch history. This rewards those who fish more rather than those who fish more sustainably. This does not have to be so, but the practice continues, despite the 2014 CFP reform establishing the possibility to change the way fishing rights are allocated through the use of transparent and objective criteria, including those of an environmental, social and economic nature.

Likewise, despite the 2014 reform of the Common Marketing Policy (CMO) to favour small-scale producers establishing their own producer organizations (POs), small-scale fishers still confront huge barriers to forming their own POs.

SDG 14b), which makes the access of small-scale artisanal fishers to marine resources and markets a priority must also form a central plank of the implementation of the CFP, and the review to be carried out in 2022 by the European Commission.

For its part, the Low Impact Fishers of Europe (LIFE) has joined hands with the MAVA Foundation, the Slow Food Foundation and the Global Footprint Network to launch the “Foodnected” project. This new project is designed to promote the transition to sustainable and fair food systems in the Mediterranean region. It is about “connecting people and nature around local, fair and sustainable food systems.” Its vision is to bring producers and consumers together through a Community of Practice grounded in shared values. By shortening the distance between producers and consumers and developing an ethical code of environmental and social values for the way food is produced and consumed, the project will address shortcomings in the prevailing market system and reverse the unfair situation faced by small-scale producers.

Smaller-scale, low impact fishing activities will never replace production from larger-scale activities. Both small-scale and large-scale sectors are needed to harvest fish sustainably to meet demands.

But the system could be a lot fairer and a lot more sustainable by allowing the small-scale sector to increase its share of the catch and the market. Such a move would also encourage a younger generation of fishers to take up fishing, particularly if its image can be portrayed as a modern sector compatible with a decent income and family life.

Consumers too can play their role by thinking globally and acting locally – by choosing fresh, locally produced fish, in season, coming from small-scale low impact fishing activities.

The old is dying, but without dedicated action the new cannot be born. The solutions are there, we must apply them.