December 16, 1963
THE FISHERMAN
Page 11
The New Look in World Fisheries
Great Changes Mark Rapidly Branding Industry
With a number of countries now building or expanding jac-tory ship fleets, how will this affect future economic development of the fishing industry? In this review, taken from a paper presented to a research seminar on fishery economics held at Bergen, Norway, Onar Onarheim attempts to answer some of the questions.
|T APPEARS to be the -H- Soviet Union's aim to increase its fleet of factory ships as fast as possible. It has already recorded positive achievements. If the results from the 30 odd ships to be put into operation during 1963-64 prove to be successful, there is no doubt there will be still further development in this direction.
Probably the factory ships now being built will be put into operation overseas. The Russians are building fishing harbors along their coasts but, in proportion to population, the quantity of fish landed in Soviet ports is not large.
One interesting point: The Russians have declared their intention of developing plants to produce fish meal for human consumption. In some parts of the USSR there is a serious lack of protein and it is easier to supply domestic needs with meal rather than frozen fish.
If this "fish meal for eating" should prove to be an acceptable product, a new development will have been started.
Then there are freeze dried products, in which there is a lot of interest in Japan as well as the USSR with a view to their application to factory ship operations.
Like the USSR, Japan must build factory ships if the country is to increase its fish production. By reason of their one sided dependence upon rice, fish is a vital necessity for the Japanese in order to balance their diet. With an ever increasing population Japan must also increase its supply of fish products
The Japanese are speeding up their construction of factory ships and continued expansion of their factory ship fleet can be anticipated.
Botli Poland and East Germany can be expected to expand their factory ship fleets along similar lines. In Spain, Portugal. France and several other countries the same trend is evident, but in these countries it seems to be more difficult to procure the capital needed for such projects.
IT IS possible that the USSR, Poland, East Germany, and later perhaps China, will continue to be the leading nations in expanding their factory ship operations.
They have a need for fish protein and they have the economic-ability to proceed with their plans for expanding their fleets.
The problem is that these countries, and others pressed by their need to increase their production of fish and fish products, will endeavor to obtain their requirements by putting into operation, not one or two but dozens of ships every year.
Then pressure on fisheries will be intensified and fishermen who continue to operate from the coasts, waiting for the fish to show up, will find that the fish have been caught on the high seas without ever having had the chance to reach the coasts.
What will probably happen is that there will be a forced expansion of factory ship fleets, first by those countries which have the greatest need for fish, are a long distance from rich fishing grounds and are willing to make the necessary capital investment to reap the harvest. Gradually other countries will have to join the race—if they can.
kNE factor is that different countries are giving increasing subsidies to production of foodstuffs. This could help to make factory ship operations more profitable because they can go where the foodstuff is to be found, taking advantage of opportunities which otherwise would not be utilised.
It is remarkable that stern trawlers - factory ships are now capable of fishing under weather
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conditions which would formerly have made fishing impossible, even when wind velocity is nine or ten. This is most important, because weather conditions, particularly in the northern hemisphere, are so changeable.
The world's steadily increasing population must look to the oceans for a larger proportion of its protein food and production of fish must be increased.
At the same time, it is apparent that the coastal waters of many countries are already being overfished and whatever reserves remain will gradually be reduced.
Changes in the fish eating habits of consumers have already been demonstrated and it is to be expected that fillets will be marketed and bought to a greater extent than they are at present.
The frozen fillet will be the fish product of the future. Since this is the prospect, it is onl\ logical that the fish should be frozen at sea.
Well equipped factory ships provide working conditions and possibilities very different from those of other fishing craft and this will probably be an important factor in the development of the ocean-going fishing fleet of the future.
Not only is there a steadily increasing need for fish, but a growing requirement for fish meal and fish oil. True, Peru and Chile have the raw material in large quantities, but it may well be that the. raw material will have to be procured by factorships in the future.
FOR the present, the scene is dominated by the USSR, together with Japan.
The Soviet fishing industry has preconditions totally different from those of Norway, for instance. The USSR is a great power with great resources and a different economic system.
Given a certain quantity of fish, the Soviet economic system is not so concerned about the investment required to bring the fish ashore. The need is for the fish to be brought ashore and the country has its own market.
In countries with a free economy, such things would not be possible.
Rationalisation of the fisheries to the same degree as in the Soviet Union is difficult for the
West.
The Russians have an ever lengthening distance from their bases to the fishing grounds and their planning has been shaped by this fact, particularly the types and sizes of their vessels and the production machinery with which they are equipped.
Development of the Soviet fishing industry presupposes a very large capital investment, with the employment of considerable numbers of men aboard each vessel.
The new Soviet fish processing vessel, the 17,000 ton Vladivostok, which recently underwent trials, is equipped for all round processing of fish, as well as being a
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repair ship and base for an auxiliary fishing fleet.
One Norwegian company now has orders from East European countries for 24 fish meal plants for trawlers Another company has orders from Japan for 16 trawl winches of the largest type.
These indicate the thoroughness of the planning in these countries, particularly noteworthy being the bold targets set for the Soviet fishing industry.
In the USSR, there is organised cooperation between the research institutions and the fishing fleet, and both officers and crew of Russian fishing vessels are thoroughly trained and well educated.
THE Soviet capability of development appears to be great.
Terentiev and Ganf of the Soviet Giproryflot Institute, have written an article on the basic problems in construction of an automatic trawler. In their introduction they mention that mechanisation of fishing methods and processing of the catch is being widely employed aboard large freezing trawlers and factory ships.
They maintain that the increasing problem of making such operations profitable can be overcome only by using more automation in the different operations under centrally coordinated direction.
Such centralised coordination makes it possible to use automation in programming and operation, by feeding into a computer the different values corresponding to the character of the situation, the values for logical succession and so on.
The Giproryflot Institute has completed a comprehensive program for construction of an automatic trawler.
Intensive research is being carried on in the Soviet Union to determine the theoretical basis of the processes in which automation should be used and provide a foundation for experimental work.
A fishing vessel is a complex mechanism, consisting of the ship itself and its fishing gear. The navigation, the search for fish, the control of the vessel's machinery and freezing plant are the processes which lend themselves best to mechanisation and automation. Fishing gear creates more difficulty.
—Cape Breton Post Dhoto mOTHERSHiP This picture, which originally appeared in the Canadian Fisherman last July, shows the Murmansk mothership
The authors of the article state that it is now possible to place before scientists and technicians the task of designing the fishing ship of the future—an automatic ship which can navigate, fish and process the catch with a minimum crew whose job would be to control operations and maintain the automatic equipment.
In conclusion, the authors also note that the USSR will intensify its research to devise new fishing with nets and trawls and rely on some form of physical influence.
* * * HjpHERE are rich fishery re-sources in the free oceans to be utilised. The question is how to utilise them profitably.
The technical questions have largely been solved. There is an enormous need for protein in the world, but can it be obtained cheaply enough? That seems to be an almost insoluble problem.
Yet surely development will continue and no doubt there will be a revolution in fishing and processing at sea.
Capt. Romain of the Norwegian factory trawler Fairtry 2 told a
friend of mine that on the trawling grounds at Belle Isle, north of Newfoundland, he could count around 200 fishing vessels all around the horizon on bright nights, the majority of them factory trawlers or trawlers fishing for mother ships of different nationalities.
Yet only eight years ago, Capt. Romain's Fairtry 2 was the only factory ship on these grounds. What a development!
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