There’s another move afoot to bypass the current business relationship between inshore harvesters and what SEA-NL calls the “cartel” of processing companies operating in the province.
It comes following the weeks-long dispute and delay in the lucrative snow crab fishery earlier this year over prices.
The new initiative would see a fishery co-operative formed to represent inshore enterprise owners, with a letter of intent to sell snow crab, and other species, to one processor, Dan Meade, in Ship Harbour, Placentia Bay.
The co-op, which should be incorporated early in the new year, would earn an equity stake in the company, in exchange for a pledge to sell at least two million pounds of snow crab each year to the business.
The Seaward Enterprises Association, or SEA-NL, is behind the new co-op. executive director Ryan Clearly says harvesters are frustrated and tired of following orders, adding this past year was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
“They’re told when to fish, how much to fish, what they’re going to be fishing for … they’re completely under the thumb of the processors,” he said. “This new co-op will give the inshore fleet an opportunity to break itself free from the grip of foreign and domestic processing companies and do it on their own. The only way that the inshore fleet is going to gain its independence is on its own, and a co-op is the way to do that.”
Cleary is encouraging independent inshore enterprise owners to “step forward with confidential pledges of support” to sell crab and other species under the new co-op.
He says members would be paid more than the minimum negotiated price for all species, adding they would also have priority in selling fish to the new company.
