Industrial Fishing Value Chain in Haiti

Industrial Fishing

Although relatively recent—emerging over the past 20 years–modern industrial fishing technologies are evident to today varying degrees in most fishing communities in Haiti. The fishing technologies include fiberglass boats and outboard motors that permit offshore capture of larger fish that that are in greater demand in the high end urban market; imported monofilament nets that more effectively snare fish; air compressors for deeper and more intensive spearfishing and gathering conch; and offshore floating platforms called “Fish Aggregating Devices” (FADs) that attract large fish making the location and capture of the fish vastly easier and more efficient. New processing and storage technologies include ice, coolers, electric freezers, and cold storage rooms for preservation, motor boats for rapid and safer transport both to offshore fishing grounds and to the urban market. All of this seems intuitively advantageous to everyone involved: fishermen, marketers, buyers and the regional economy. But, as will be seen, it may be that conditions in Haiti make the endeavor costly, risky, and economically unsustainable in the absence of major investments from the international community.

The modernization of fishing is linked, if not dependent on, the formation of associations and cooperatives. These organizations tend to be dominated by traditional elites, politicians, and urban oriented entrepreneurs (see Weiner 2005 for example); they are heavily subsidized with funds from the international community; and to date, they include only a small minority of the total fishing population. It is nevertheless an area that shows promise. The impact is best exemplified by success in Grand Anse communities of d’Anse d’Hainault, de Dame Marie et des Irois Anse. In 2000 the European Union and MARNDR supported the formation of two local associations, provided access to fishing gear and cold storage, and installed DCPs.  By 2008, 68% of fisherman in the area had outboard motors; fulltime fishermen were earning an estimated US$29,700 per year (Guinette 2009; see Table).

Pros and Cons of Artisanal vs. Industrial Fishing

For the fishermen, industrial offshore fishing seems to have obvious advantages. Artisanal fishermen are limited in range. They lack outboard motors; their vessels are fragile and unfit for the open sea. They lack portable cold storage. This means the artisanal fisherman must stay close to shore. The size of fish he can catch is limited as well.  Even when the artisanal fisherman manages to hook a large fish he is often unable to pull it aboard, as he may capsize in the process or get pulled out to sea trying to hold on to the fish.

Thus it seems evident that industrial deep-sea fishing is eminently more advantageous to fishermen. Moreover, a concern in terms of interventions that target artisanal fishermen is its ecological impact on the coastal shelf. In the past 30 years the number of artisanal fishermen exploiting the Haiti’s shelf went from 11,000 in 1985 to 30,000 in 2001 to over 50,000 in 2010.[i] It is a 5 fold increase. Coupled with the complete absence of any controls on fishing areas, size and age of the fish caught, and compounded by extreme erosion and consequent muddy runoff from streams and rivers that smothers reefs and destroys fish habitat, Haiti’s shelf is said to be in a state of extreme ecological crisis. Reef Check, an international volunteer agency that has taken on the responsibility of monitoring the ecological status of reefs throughout the world, has identified Haiti as having, “the most overfished reefs in the world” (Reef Check 2001).  [ii]

So the apparent ecological unsustainability of Haiti’s current artisanal fishery seems to point the way toward offshore fishing. This means FADs, fiberglass boats, and access to high end urban markets. But for the GRC and international organizations sensitive to negative publicity and environmental crisis, there are problems here as well. First off, throughout the world, stocks of large offshore predatory fish have been declining precipitously now for at least the past 4 decades. Some studies indicate declines in Billfish– the fish that Haiti’s new fishermen aim to catch –have declined by 65 to 98 percent in the past 40 years (Chambers and Associates 2010). Questions have been raised in this context about the role of FADs. Greenpeace calls them “deadly fish magnets” that are driving deep sea fish beyond the point-of-no-return. Environmental activists are lobbying for quotas and prohibitions. Many people in the developed world are listening. Among them are surely many Red Cross donors.[iii] [iv]

Another issue is the costs associated with offshore fishing and who has been paying them. Investment in the industrial fishing gear, boat and motor necessary for a single equipped vessel generally exceeds US$20,000. Cold storage is another cost. FADs are anchored, preferably with chain, to the bottom of the sea at depths of 1,000 feet or more. Someone has to pay for all of this. Seafood imports from Haiti were long ago banned in both the US and Europe because phytosanitary concerns, which means that Haitian fishing attracts little corporate financial investment from outside the country (MARNDR 2009).  The Haitian state makes no investments in fishing. It is unable on its own to accomplish the task and will remain that way for the foreseeable future.  For a lucky few fishermen, costs have been subsidized by international aid organizations, as in the case of d’Anse d’Hainault, Dame Marie et Irois Anse in the Sourth of Haiti, and in communities elsewhere in Haiti.

The point is that the industry is being financed with aid, to the extent that it is being funded at all.  Anse d’Hainault region is an excellent example. The offshore industrial fishing industry began there in 2000 with EU financing: 132 outboard motors were sold on credit and subsidized at 50% of cost; 10 DCPs were installed; a credit fund was provided as well as cold storage facilities and materials. Fishermen responded. The number of offshore fishing vessels in the area went from 120 in 1997 to 220 in 2007 (Damais et al, 2007; (Guinette 2009).  In 2008, Food for the Poor reportedly gave each of the three communities an additional 24-foot fiberglass boats with outboard engines, 100-quart coolers, safety equipment, global positioning system (GPS) fish finders and kerosene freezers to store catches.[v]

The role that aid plays in initiating the formation of fishing associations is clear. When the EU first began financing Anse Hainault, there was no fishing association. L’Association des Jeunes d’Anse d’Hainault converted itself into « Pêche Anse d’Hainaut Irois », or PADI, becoming the major recipient of boats, motors and securing access to the DCPs. Two years later, in 2002, the AMPAH (Association des Marins Pêcheurs d’Anse d’Hainault) was formed as an offshoot and co-recipient of the funds. In 2013, short before this report was written,  representatives of one of these associations sought additional funding and subsidizing from the Red Cross (based on report from Red Cross field manager),  highlighting the likelihood that without influx of aid to the fishermen, investments would not have been made in the first place. And without continued support, it’s hard to see how the industry can be sustained. [vi]

There is also the issue of the stability of access to urban markets. While Haiti imports 70% of the fish consumed in the country (see MARNDR 2009), there is still the difficulty of getting high quality local fish to the Port-au-Prince market.  Contacts, entrepreneurs, investments in time, storage and transport has all been subsidized and expedited by overseas aid agencies and foreign donors.

To understand why Haitians themselves never invested in an industrial fishing sector, one has to turn to Haiti’s poor infrastructure, precarious urban market, and tumultuous political landscape (see ##). But for the purposes of this paper, the dependency on foreign aid to establish and sustain what could be a highly lucrative enterprise should give us pause. We should ask if the industry is now sustainable or will be in the foreseeable future. The ultimate question in this regard will be whether local associations, government and entrepreneurs will at some point assume the costs and responsibility for the system necessary to make it sustainable or if, as so often occurs with projects in Haiti, the industry will only endure as long as international donors subsidize it.

Indeed, it is noteworthy in this regard that while all along the coast one sees locally handcrafted canoes and dories with men working hard at artisanal fishing, there is a conspicuous absence of modern boats. In all of Haiti, less than 5% of fisherman can aptly be classified as industrial fisherman (MARNDR 2009; Guinette 2009). If the traveler goes ashore, in almost every fishing village in Haiti, he or she can collect the stories of failure and see the discarded and deteriorating hulls of fiberglass boats from past projects.

 

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NOTES

[i] Drawing on CRFM’s 2010 evaluation of fishing in Haiti, The National Fisheries Service estimates that 21,000 (60%) of these are full time fishers, whilst the rest 6,000 (40%) are part-time fishers. When one follows the trend over the past two decades, the estimates are as follows: 1985 – 11,000 (www.cam.org); 1989 – 12,000 (UNDP / FAO); 1999 – 17,148 (FAO); 2001-30,000; in 2010 MARNDR put it at 52,000

[ii] Haiti’s Reefs Most Overfished in the World  Post date : 2011-03-30

http://reefcheck.org/news/news_detail.php?id=726

[iii]  Having said that, all Haitian fisherman combined currently catch less Pelagic fish than a major industrial fishing boat; and the temporary relief for the shelf and the economic interest that would come from offshore fishing could galvanize Haitian interest in conservation–I said “could.”

[iv] see, Green Peace Blogs:  http://www.greenpeace.org.au/blog/?p=77 and http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/en/news/oceans/What-is-sustainable-tuna/

[v] For Food for the Poor boats, see Net News 2008 “Florida charity changes lives in Haiti”

http://www.caribbeannewsnow.com/caribnet/haiti/haiti.php?news_id=5627&start=1040&category_id=2