SHRIMP SHUTDOWN: Peninsula plants closed, boats tied up

By Aaron Beswick

FOR THE SOU’WESTER

Transcontinental Media/Northern Pen

The Northern Peninsula appears destined for its worst summer since the 1992 cod moratorium.

Crashing world markets first hit lobster prices, then crab, and now it appears there will be no shrimp fishery at all this summer.

Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte MP Gerry Byrne estimates 1,000-1,200 people at the peninsula’s four shrimp plants will be out of work and the draggers that harvest the small crustacean. Across the province 3,000-4,000 people could be without seasonal employment.

Processors shut their doors Tuesday, June 2 after the province’s Fish Price Setting Panel refused a request from the Association of Seafood Producers (ASP) to lower the price it pays to harvesters by 10 cents, bringing the price down to around 32 cents per pound. “Everything is shut down,” said Anchor Point’s Gary Genge, owner of the 65-foot Newfie Pride. “It’s all on the backs of we fellers, like we can fish for nothing. We can’t and we won’t.”

The Newfie Pride averaged about 50 cents per lb. last year and Genge said he could have managed at the current 42 cent per lb. rate, but a further 10-cent cut would be impossible.

ASP executive director Derek Butler said dropping prices are the result of a strengthening Canadian dollar and weakening shrimp markets. Since the panel set shrimp prices in March, the Canadian dollar has risen from 81 cents to 92 cents American. “The only expectation now is that currency will continue to strengthen and markets will continue to decline,” said Butler. “ The situation will only get worse as the summer moves on – if it’s not feasible now, then later on it is zero to nil chance. Right now we’re facing a summer with no shrimp.”

That’s about the worst possible news for Gerry Gros.

Anchor Point, like Black Duck Cove, survives nearly completely on shrimp.

There’s the plant, employing from 130-150 people, plus at least six draggers in Anchor Point alone. “The whole area is going to be hit,” said Mayor Gros, pointing out that two-thirds of employees at the shrimp plant come from surrounding communities. “People are worried – a couple years ago when the Alberta boom was on the go, people would have looked to go there, but not now.”

If the season can’t be salvaged, Anchor Point will be looking to the province for community enhancement projects to help its plant workers and dragger crews qualify for Employment Insurance benefits. “It’s one of the few ways we can be directly involved. If the season is lost, we’ll try as quickly as we can to get those arranged,” said Fisheries and Aquaculture Minister Tom Hedderson. “As for putting money directly into the industry – we can’t interfere with open trade because of the trade agreements our country is in with other countries. Any subsidies would be challenged, I would imagine.”

Gerry Byrne, meanwhile, was pointing his finger at processors. “Processors are using their clout to basically destroy the inshore shrimp fleet of our province, and something has to be done about it,” said the HumberSt. Barbe-Baie Verte MP. “It seems to me this is a pressure tactic to get fishermen to bear all the pain. In other words, they’ve got only one solution on the table and that’s to get fishermen to accept 35 cent per lb., and when they accept that then drag down to 25 cents per lb.”

Byrne pointed out that processors refused an offer of $ 5-million by the province to help set up a seafood marketing board. “They refused to accept $ 5-million seed capital for marketing. Then can they reasonably say marketing is an issue?”

He wants the province to drop its rules forbidding outside buyers from coming into Newfoundland and Labrador to buy shrimp for a two-week trial period. That, Byrne argues, would force Island processors to pay more for shrimp. “You’d do it as a pilot project only, because you do want to keep shrimp in the province. But as it is right now, nobody is going to get work out of this.”

Hedderson, meanwhile, flatly refused Byrne’s suggestion. “If anyone trucked shrimp down the peninsula, past all those plants that are idle, it wouldn’t go over – I wouldn’t entertain that,” said Hedderson. “ In bad times you don’t make it worse. The prices in New Bunswick and Quebec are not a lot different. There are no easy answers to this.”