Our seafood is world-beating ...to see it rot is heartbreaking
FISHING has never been an easy way to earn a living. In my 40 years as a fisherman, I saw good times ebb and flow as the vagaries of government policy, both domestic and European, affected our long-cherished way of life.
But rarely have we experienced the perfect storm of events which has left our industry in crisis. For our struggling fishing communities have been hit with a double whammy – and the chaos surrounding the Brexit transition that we have witnessed in the past fortnight is only half the story.
Let’s not forget that we are in the middle of a devastating pandemic. This time last year, we would all have been enjoying nights out at restaurants, meals at the local pub, or business meetings over lunch, savouring the best that the Scottish larder has to offer.
That has all come to a standstill. Much of our high-end, quality seafood is not needed as the demand from the food service sector has diminished severely. But the current chaos gripping what remains of our supply chain has only served to exacerbate matters.
Our 70 members employ around 10,000 people across the fishing, processing and trading sectors. Many are asking how did it ever come to this? We all knew Brexit was on its way. Some were angry about it, others welcomed it, but the fact was that on Monday, January 4, we would be out of the European Union.
A whole new set of rules would apply to the fishermen and processors, to the vets required to certify consignments, and to the customs officials on both sides of the Channel.
Yet, none of us, I think, appreciated the scale and gravity of these changes. We knew it would be more red tape, but did we expect the mountain of confusing paperwork that is now required, with seven separate documents for each species caught? And all filled in with the right colour ink, of course.
There was no dummy run for this; it was like turning up at work on a Monday morning and finding that someone had installed a new computer system over the weekend without giving you any training on how it worked.
Although Defra (the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) set up a helpline to assist with glitches, it was swamped with calls because every man and his dog was trying to get through.
Things started to go wrong on day one as the first lorries arrived at the transport hubs where vets check the catches and paperwork matched. A process that normally takes less than an hour was taking up to six times as long as the contents were subjected to far greater scrutiny.
Lorries were being rejected because of incorrect paperwork, including documents that were filled out in the wrong colour of ink.
Before you know it, day one’s problems dragged on into day two to create an even bigger problem and even longer delays.
Within three days we had a complete choke in the system. It was made worse by computers going down in Dunkirk and BoulogneSur-Mer and before we knew it, we were all going nowhere. The knock-on effects have been severe. The price of many species of Scottish seafood – including coley, megrim, whiting, monkfish, hake, ling and highly perishable premium shellfish – has almost halved at market. That comes on top of a general collapse in prices caused by Covid-19.
Our market is no longer demanding anything like what it normally would at this time of year. Around a third more boats are being tied up than normal. But bottlenecks in the supply system since January hardly help.
SCOTTISH seafood is among the finest in the world and to see tons of it spoiled is heart-breaking. We need to sort this situation out fast before our reputation is tarnished. In the short-term, our primary focus must be on trying to speed up delivery to market.
We are working with the Scottish, UK and French governments to find a solution. A sixmonth grace period in relation to the raft of new paperwork required would be a start.
Long-term, a solution might be to create a customs clearing house here in Scotland. Manned by EU customs officials, it would allow our product to be checked and certified – and any problems rectified – long before it gets to any bottleneck further downstream.
Any rejected load could be swiftly offloaded back into the domestic market before it has perished. Checked lorries could then be sealed and would not need to be reopened until they reached France.
It is a big ask requiring international agreement. And we are working against the clock, as many of our members have little time left.
We must find a way through this – the reputation of our seafood is at stake.