BAD weather, disappointing prices, high fuel costs, unfair quota reforms, the need for a level playing field and a leaked Ministry of Agriculture document were the main topics of conversation on Shetland recently.
But I was talking to fishermen, not farmers.
There are three main types of fishing in Shetland; shellfish like scallops, prawn, lobster and crab, whitefish that live near the bottom like cod, haddock, whiting, saithe and monkfish and pelagic species, the fish that swim in the middle depths like herring and mackerel.
Fishing for shellfish in Shetland was badly disrupted when restrictions were imposed after oil polluted the surrounding seas in the aftermath of the Braer disaster in January 1994.
Despite massive compensation payouts by the Braer’s insurers, the incident struck a blow that lasted several years and shellfishing is still struggling with low profitability.
There are also problems in the white fishing fleet due to overfishing and increased fuel costs.
As with farming, fishermen have to contend with consumer resistance, that phenomenon where canny housewives will switch to a cheaper substitute like chicken or pork. In other words, prices are as good as they are likely to get and the real problem is that the fishermen simply can’t catch enough.
Pelagic fishing is still reasonably profitable but soaring fuel costs have left skippers having to pay out half the value of their catch to fill up with diesel.
Main concerns involve the unfairness of the quota system and what will happen after 2002 when, under the EU’s current common fisheries policy (CPP) rules, Scottish waters will be forced to allow equal access by all member states to a common fishing resource.
Magnie Stewart, outspoken skipper of the aptly named Defiant, an 87 feet long whitefish trawler, has recently resigned from the Shetland Fishermen’s Association (SFA) over their strategy for dealing with future policy changes. "My view on the CFP is that we have to get out of it and regain national control of our fishing grounds. The whole thing is an absolute disaster. Britain provides 80 per cent of the fish stocks but has no control over them," warns Stewart.
Like many, he believes that international law would be on Britain’s side if she opted to manager her waters like Iceland, the Faroes and Norway.
"Other nationalities could still be allowed to fish in our waters but under our terms as opposed to under EU terms," he adds.
He concedes that under the present derogation to the CFP Scotland gets a fair deal, "but after 2002 the North Sea becomes a common European pond where everyone will have equal access on a non-discriminatory basis".
Stewart had just returned from a two week fishing trip and had grossed £26,000 for his catch, although fuel cost £8,000. He is one of the fortunate skippers with no borrowings and works the traditional system of deducting all the boat’s expenses from the catch, keeping half of what is left for himself and then allowing his eight crew members to share the other half.
"We’re in the lucky position of being able to do that. Quite a few boats have big financial commitments and have to limit the crew to sharing 30 per cent of what is left after expenses. So there are a lot of crew members taking home well below the minimum wage."
Francis Adamson, Skibhoull, Cunningsburgh, supports Stewart’s views and feels so strongly that he stood as a candidate for the Referendum Party against local MP, MSP and Scotland’s minister for justice, Jim Wallace in the last general election polling 820 votes.
He knows the bitter struggles that fishermen face having worked his way up from being a share fisherman to buying a third share in a 70 feet long, second hand trawler that cost £110,000 back in 1986.
"We fished for whitefish like haddock, whiting, cod and sand eels," Adamson recalls. But environmentalists linked a dramatic decline in sea birds to the practice of trawling for sand eels (that were processed into fishmeal for livestock feed) and introduced restrictions.
"Shortly after buying the boat sand eel fishing became restricted with periods when fishing wasn’t allowed. Fish got scarcer and we decided in 1993 to get out of white fishing and we decommissioned the boat in 1994 for £90,000 when the boat and her quota were scrapped."
Adamson then went into partnership with a friend on a 40 feet long, second hand boat that cost £80,000 and they tried their hand at inshore scallop fishing. "We made a living but always struggled with our bank loans," he recalls. Eventually he gave up fishing in 1996 and sold the boat for £90,000.
He is another fisherman who feels strongly about the unfair quota system. "The European fishing policy is an absolute fiasco. The biggest part of Shetland’s whitefish fleet is on a knife-edge and many are facing bankruptcy. We need a zonal system where the state manages our coastal waters. That requires changes to the Amsterdam treaty which can never happen with the current voting system in Europe."
He recalls times when he has seen Spanish owned trawlers flout the regulations and use illegal gill nets to catch valuable monkfish as they fed their way in from the west of the Shetlands to the Flugga ground where Shetlanders traditionally fish for them.
"On my last trip to Flugga there was a Norwegian super trawler on its way home from Newfoundland. She fished alongside us and was reported to a fishery protection vessel that drew alongside. But the crew never bothered to board the boat to check the catch.
"We calculated she was carrying half a million pounds worth of fish at a time when we were limited to just 60 boxes of saithe a month and had to dump the rest over the side ."
John Goodlad is the chiefexecutive of the SFA that represents 126 of the 127 full time vessels in Shetland, which, together with nearly 80 part time vessels, land an annual catch worth about £40 million.
He dismisses the myth of foreign fishermen flouting the rules. "There are no Spanish vessels in the North Sea and no Spanish quotas for the North Sea. There are however Spanish owned UK boats fishing with UK quotas," he advises.
He concedes that the level of enforcement by the Spanish authorities on illegal catches landed in Spain is probably the poorest in Europe, but argues the way forward is to ensure they conform to UK rules because they are UK registered boats fishing with UK quotas in UK waters.
Goodlad also says the saithe quota is unfairly distributed but is reluctant to renegotiate within the CFP. "We would have to trade some other part of our quota within the EU and that could be to the benefit of German or English freezer fleets. "
And as for that controversial leaked MAFF document? It turns out to be little more than an internal memo on a report from Hull University. It advises Fisheries Minister Elliot Morley that while the proposals of Hull University for establishing zonal control over fishing rights are interesting, they would require major changes to the present CFP framework.
Fishermen like farmers face an uncertain and difficult future without the extra problem of mischievous leaks.
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