+- Jamericans (https://jamericans.net/yellowboard)
+-- Forum: Jamaicaholics (https://jamericans.net/yellowboard/forumdisplay.php?fid=1)
+--- Forum: Message Board (https://jamericans.net/yellowboard/forumdisplay.php?fid=3)
+--- Thread: more lobster drama.. (/showthread.php?tid=102742)
more lobster drama.. - oldtimer - 05-27-2020
Some boats have been put on a quota starting yesterday including a price drop . Quota is 600lbs at $3.50cdn .Not enough to pay for the trip out . OUCH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It has not hit my son's boat yet so we will see . There is a meeting at 5:00AM this morning to discuss this . My son said they might have to let a man go ,or not go at all ????? He was scared to have a drink of rum last night . VERY WORRIED !!!! It's 8:45AM and no call yet ?????
RE: more lobster drama.. - CardBoardBox - 05-27-2020
Ouch. 600# at that price (did you say Asians control the pricing?***) means not a large payday after expenses.
With the problems you exposed, ie trucking, whalf access, it seems logical to restrict flooding the market but there are still expenses AND people's survival depends upon that income.
I'm sorry to say your son is between a rock and a hard place.
The only partial solution (if that) is for one captain to buy the quota allocation of another captain, but that is merely saving the fuel cost.
Who ever is sitting behind a desk setting these restrictions should be on the phone exploring ways to distribute the lobsters, overcome the recent hurdles which you also elaborated on, at a more realistic price.
***yes, you said they control the price. Who is setting the quota, and is it legal?
My fight is the traditional Tuna cans, a product of Thailand, now is more frequenty being a "product of China" stamped on the can. With their clout, near total control by one country is not unthinkable. And you know what that can do with the retail price. It's called a monopoly.
RE: more lobster drama.. - oldtimer - 05-28-2020
It's not that easy . The quota is set by the buyers .The price is set by the buyers .The bait is controlled by the buyers. If you try to get this kind of stuff by yourself good luck when you have to go back to the buyers .
RE: more lobster drama.. - kylake - 05-29-2020
Sounds like a sad situation, in a sad time, when nobody needs some new problem put on their menu. Keep us posted as it all progresses forward.
RE: more lobster drama.. - CardBoardBox - 05-29-2020
I waited to read about the phone call, if it came.
Naturally I would have gone into a related story of how a certain government established a price they would pay for steel imports, and independents who paid more on the 'spot market' were closed down. Wal-Mart and Rubbermaid same style thing, where $$ offered by WM was less than product cost, with alternative being WM would not purchase anything. Guess which country purchased the Rubbermaid equipment when they went under? I'm not making this stuff up!
Not really wanting to hear if one crew member got the axe, the whole boat has been affected in not a good way. I think we share Dad's pain.
RE: more lobster drama.. - CardBoardBox - 07-01-2020
(05-28-2020, 12:32 PM)double trouble ot Wrote: It's not that easy . The quota is set by the buyers .The price is set by the buyers .The bait is controlled by the buyers. If you try to get this kind of stuff by yourself good luck when you have to go back to the buyers .
The solution has got to come from the fishermen themselves.
The revolution has got to be complete or it is doomed to failure. Analogy would be pushing a heavy vehicle half way up the hill. It will backslide down.
But "complete" doesn't mean turn all the buyers into lobster bait.
If all the sellers in one port or the entire nation banded together, secretly setting up a cooperative and developed new marketing plans, the traditional buyers wouldn't know who or how to cause grief on any one seller. (This addresses sentence 5 of the 5 sentence reply quoted.)
When the Asians gained control of all the aspects of the lobster industry, it almost turned the fishermen into hourly employees. I hope they don't control the banks too. (My dad never financed an automobile but a 10K car is not a boat in the 6 figure category.)
I know I proposed looking to the goverment on how to skirt export restrictions, and I am the first person to admit I do not have (all) the answers, but now is the time (lobster season being over) to band together.
---editorial---
(nah, I decided not to get into explaining good intentions.)
I'm not requesting HOW one group became so powerful. I'm only now wondering if there is a parallel to Wal-Mart coming to town.
As I sit here, asking myself if anyone appreciates (ie, understands) the reference to Wal-Mart, if I should expand upon it or just accept that people wouldn't bother to put any thought into it, there was something new in the news about cows instead of lobsters.
82 farms in Pennsylvania lost their outlet for milk production. The local processor cancelled partly because Wal-Mart has built their own plant. Milk is being trucked in from far away farms. Greed can wreck flurishing communities/families.
RE: more lobster drama.. - CardBoardBox - 07-03-2020
On 7/3, the NY Times ran a piece about Maine Lobstermen. (viewing is by subscription)
Maine, due to lack of tourists, is in the same boat as NS. The article does not mention the details/items DToT has shared but here are some highlights::
In the waning days of June, Mr. Hutchings said he was selling the more costly hard-shell lobsters at around $4.50 a pound, roughly half of what he was able to get for them a year ago. In Lincolnville Harbor, only three of eight boats in the cove had lobster traps in the water
...
Mr. Trump issued a proclamation directing the agriculture secretary to find ways to assist the lobster industry, which he said had been unfairly targeted with retaliatory tariffs by China (which) nearly crippled exports from wholesalers like Mr. Young. Maine lobster exports to China fell by 48.24 percent in 2019.
Canadian resellers have stepped in, buying shellfish from Maine wholesalers, albeit at a lower price, ....
# # #
(his buyer’s plants are already full) yet this maine lobsterman put in all 800 traps this year.)
I don't know how much Canada exported to China this year, nor what the selling price in China is for 2020. Is this checkable (and would said info be helpful?) There is a Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative, but that doesn't help NS and their Asian control problem.
I always thought the JA marketing arm for North America as a cushy job, as well as being to buddy-buddy with the AI's and bigger hotels.
RE: more lobster drama.. - oldtimer - 07-04-2020
I just don't know what to say CBB .I fished for 57 years . The problem is MONEY !!!!!! the strongest crime in Asia is the control of the tuna market . The states want to buy OUR !!!! lobsters , ship them to the states THEN !!!!!!! back to Canada and ship them to China SAYING !!!!! they are Canadian caught . I had to say this but you have absolutely no grasp of the business . Sentences with " can't you , only if , secret meetings , but if , etc " don't mean nothing when your dealing with " take it or leave it " that is offered !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Trying to deal with 2,200 fisherpeople in Nova Scotia , with only a few companies to deal with is like HERDING CATS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is not caused by fishers IT IS CAUSED BY POLICYS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and quota !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! they wait until you are out to sea and call a meeting . HOW IN THE HELL CAN JUST RUN ASHORE AND STOP FISHING !!!!!!!! Before you say any more about this you better slip on your rubber boots , kiss the wife with a see you later ,put to sea in a 1/2 a millon $ boat and hope you do well . Are you ready for that . Somehow I think not . I don't mean to be rude but until you wring salt water out of your socks you have no resume in fishing .It is not as easy as you think !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
RE: more lobster drama.. - oldtimer - 07-04-2020
The fishers just got the word NO BONUS FROM THE BUYERS !!!!! not even .25 cents !!!
RE: more lobster drama.. - CardBoardBox - 07-05-2020
When the house is on fire and what is needed is a fire truck with a hose, and some guy has a bucket and a suggestive question of fetching some water from the pond to help douce the flames, it is interesting to learn about updrafts and how large quanties of water are needed to be effective.
Yet as we look around, no one else has a bucket.
A willingness to try does not have to be met with notification that the bucket also leaks.
----------------
the rest went into my draft folder, best shared over a couple of Red Stripes in the land of "this humidity is brutal" in July and August, even with an offshore breeze and tree frogs.
Canada has a favored tariff policy with China on shell fish. Policy sucks when working people get hurt.