Tag Archives: domestic fishing industry
Lawmakers support new fees on Louisiana seafood dealers who import foreign catch
House Bill 748, sponsored by Rep. Jessica Domangue, R-Houma, would raise the state’s imported seafood safety fee from a flat $100 per year to a 0.1 percent assessment on the company’s gross revenue. The proposal marks the freshman lawmaker’s first bill, which Domangue, the daughter of a commercial fisherman, called “very special” for its ability to protect the domestic seafood industry. It cleared the House Committee on Natural Resources and Environment with unanimous support and will head to the House floor for consideration. Imported seafood has become so ubiquitous in Louisiana and across the nation that it has decimated the once-thriving domestic fishing industry. The low cost and ample availability of foreign catch has put negative pressure on local product prices, making it near impossible for those in the Louisiana commercial fishing industry to stay above water profit wise. more, >>click to read<< 06:36
The fishermen
Jose Quezon’s hands moved like the parts of a well-oiled machine. It was April 1 2021, and the Northern Osprey, a 20m fishing trawler that sails out of Kilkeel, Northern Ireland, was in UK waters near the Isle of Man. The boat and its crew, four Filipinos and one British captain, had been at sea since dawn two days before. But Quezon had been at sea for the majority of his adult life. He had worked as a deckhand in the Philippines for 14 years and, since 2009, on British-flagged boats fishing out of UK ports. Technically, Quezon lived in the Philippines. But each year, he boarded a plane in Manila and flew to Belfast in Northern Ireland or Aberdeen in Scotland. When he arrived, his visa gave him 48 hours to transit through the UK to join a ship, which he’d live on for the next eight to 12 months. >click to read< 20:56
