Tag Archives: price setting panel
Accusing union of refusing all offers, ASP warns crab tie-up will soon have an economic whammy
Association of Seafood Producers executive director Jeff Loder says the current crab tie-up is getting to a point where it is going to negatively affect the market for the rest of the season — and other fisheries after that. It’s been nearly a week since the snow crab season was scheduled to begin. Fish harvesters have tied up their boats, however, refusing to fish under the pricing formula that an independent panel set just before the start of the season. Loder said it’s lining up to be a repeat of last season, in which harvesters tied up their boats for six weeks. “We are now reaching the point where [we] were to last year where there will be negative implications if the crab fishery does not start,” he told reporters Thursday. Video, more, >>click to read<< 17:43
Crab harvesters will lose out on $30M because price-setting panel sided with processors, says Efford
With the time-sensitive snow crab season set to begin in a few days, fish harvesters in Newfoundland and Labrador are once again talking about tying up their boats due to the price of crab. One vocal critic says the new decision will cost harvesters as much as $30 million from a lucrative fishery that has become the economic mainstay in the industry since the cod collapse of the early 1990s. The province’s price-setting panel sided with the Association of Seafood Producers on Monday evening, setting a price floor of $2.60 per pound with the ability go up as market factors change. John Efford, the Port de Grave fisherman who led protests throughout March, said when he heard the price setting panel had chosen the ASP formula his first reaction was one of disbelief. Photos, Video, more, >>click to read<< 16:35
Harvester and FFAW frustrations about snow crab prices looming ‘on the eve of the fishery’
It will be a few more days before Newfoundland and Labrador snow crab harvesters will find out what they will be paid for their catches. The province’s price setting panel is still reviewing the latest offers from the Fish Food and Allied Workers and the Association of Seafood Producers. However, it is becoming obvious that fishing incomes from crab this season will be half of what they were last season. The FFAW had promised to provide information about the new offers on Friday, but later backed down. That information blackout has led to more frustration among fish harvesters. >click to read< 13:03
Hopes dashed for crab-pricing formula as union-producer talks end in failure
It started out six weeks ago as a rare show of unity between the fisheries union and seafood producers, but efforts to agree on a price formula for this year’s snow crab harvest have ended in failure. Jeff Loder, executive director of the Association of Seafood Producers, said in a press release issued Tuesday afternoon that the group couldn’t reach an agreement with the Fish, Food & Allied Workers union, which represents Newfoundland and Labrador’s inshore fishermen. “We negotiated in good faith with our best efforts to find a collaborative solution with the FFAW by defining a formula that works for both parties. Unfortunately, this was not possible,” says the release. >click to read< 15:37
Fisherman who vowed to dump shrimp if no buyer stepped forward has found one,,, in Nova Scotia
The La Scie inshore fisherman who vowed to dump his first load of northern shrimp for the season if he couldn’t sell the catch has found a buyer across the Gulf in Nova Scotia. “Thank God we don’t have to dump it,” says Ryan, who operates the fishing enterprise, F/V Atlantic Blue Too, with his son Josh, the skipper and license holder. “A Nova Scotia buyer has agreed to purchase the shrimp for significantly more than buyers are willing to pay here.” Most of the province’s shrimp fleets in the Gulf and off the east coast have yet to untie this season, despite the fact the spring price was set on April 24th, and the fishery opened on May 29th. >click to read< 08:04
Fisherman who vowed to dump shrimp if no buyer found suffers vessel breakdown, threat stands
The La Scie fisherman who vowed to dump his first load of northern shrimp for the season if there was no buyer returned to port today without any catch after his fishing boat suffered mechanical problems at sea. But Terry Ryan says he expects the Atlantic Bluefin Too will be repaired as early as Friday, and he plans to follow through with his pledge. “Full-steam ahead,” says Ryan, who operates the enterprise with his son, Josh, the skipper and licence-holder. Terry Ryan threatened to dump their first load of shrimp at an estimated loss of $100,000 if there’s no buyer when the catch landed as a protest of the province’s panel system of fish pricing. >click to read< 15:14
Shrimp fisherman prepared to dump 50,000-pound catch if processors not prepared to buy it
Terry Ryan of La Scie, who together with his son Josh operate the Atlantic Bluefin Too, vows the boat will start fishing shrimp on Saturday, and if there’s no buyer for the 50,000/lbs they expect to have aboard by late Sunday/early Monday when the vessel returns to port, the catch will be dumped as a means to shake up the fishery and get it going. The spring shrimp price was set at $1.42/lb on April 24th, and Fisheries and Oceans opened the fishery on Sunday, May 29th (after public complaints by Terry Ryan on VOCM Open Line/The Broadcast), but the inshore fleet has yet to untie because processors say the price is too high. Which leads back to the increasingly popular question: what’s the good of the government-appointed price-setting panel? >click to read< 07:46
Snow crab prices plummet in Newfoundland
It wasn’t the news fish harvesters in Newfoundland and Labrador wanted to hear. They’ll get less for their snow crab after today, as the result of a decision by the province’s fish price setting panel. After reviewing a request from the Association of Seafood Producers and arguments by the Fish Food and Allied Workers, the panel went with the processors’ pitch of $6.15 per pound. That’s down nearly 20 per cent from the $7.60 per pound price that was set for the start of the season on April 1. In Nova Scotia, fish harvesters also saw a drop in snow crab prices a couple of weeks ago. They are now getting $8.25 a pound for snow crab, according to Gordon Beaton, local president with the Maritime Fishermen’s Union. >click to read< 11:06
Why summer shrimp price should be set at $1.22/lb (which even then may be too low)
The 2021 summer price of shrimp paid to inshore fishermen — either the FFAW’s proposed $1.22/lb or the $1.10/lb offered by processors — is now in the hands of the province’s price setting panel, which, by law, must choose one or the other. That’s even if the “right price” is somewhere in the middle, just as the panel wrote in late April when it set the spring price of shrimp at $1/lb (processors’ price) over the FFAW’s $1.50/lb. The panel system of fish pricing doesn’t work in terms of best possible price to harvesters, but that’s another story. >click to read< 16:00
Newfoundland shrimp fishermen still in limbo as fish plants remain idle
Normally, the shrimp fishing season starts by June, with fishers in this area wrapping up their season in late August and hoping not to have to fish through the bad weather months of mid to late fall. But a wrangle over shrimp prices has lasted longer than usual, thanks in part to the uncertain markets caused by Coronavirus. In mid June the province’s Price Setting Panel decided on a price of $1.18 per pound, choosing the price suggested by the Fish Food and Allied Workers (FFAW-Unifor) over the price of .70 cents per pound suggested by the Association of Seafood Processors (ASP). Meanwhile, according to the union, shrimp processors in New Brunswick and Quebec, including a Royal Greenland-owned plant, have been buying shrimp from harvesters in that province while refusing to purchase from Newfoundland and Labrador harvesters. >click to read< 07:37
FFAW calls for increased focus on marketing of Newfoundland and Labrador’s valuable cod resource
ST. JOHN’S, May 29, 2015 – The need for a focus on marketing of our cod resource is evident following a decision by the price setting panel to reduce the price paid to harvesters for cod. The panel responded to cries from processing companies for cheaper fish, to the detriment of harvesters who worked hard to improve quality and are already dealing with resource declines in other sectors. This was a disappointing result given that cod is so important to many harvesters in this province. Read the rest here 09:47
