OFFICIALS SAY FISHERMEN NEED TO BE MORE COMPETITIVE

Some federal officials believe that the criticism of Japanese companies has yet to be proven and is motivated in part by the unwillingness of Alaska salmon fishermen and processors to be competitive. One official told SAM TRADE that U.S. salmon fisherman are not doing the job they could marketing their product:

"There have been complaints about collusion by the fishermen, but then they are quite content to sell their fish to the Japanese ... and not have to worry about marketing."

Scott Stevenson, vice president of the Bristol Bay Driftnetters' Association, also fishes in Bristol Bay. He believes fishermen can help themselves by upgrading the technology on their vessels, such as refrigeration, and develop profit-sharing with processors.

The processors buy the fish from the fisherman and then clean and cut it on their own vessels before selling it to Japanese trading companies, who place the salmon into the holds of refrigerated vessels for shipment back to Japan.

Stevenson is part of a new breed of fishermen who studies monthly market trends in Tokyo while still attending to upgrading his vessel and preparing for the next fishing season. Stevenson believes that fishermen have to anticipate market trends to survive and can no longer passively await whatever price the market dictates.

Stevenson says that a cooperative among salmon fishermen similar to the cooperative structure in the U.S. citrus industry "would be a great idea" but would have to be executed correctly:
"You need to have the attention to quality the citrus people do to prevent bad oranges going to market and hurting the image. Our problem is that we can't control the situation beyond our border. Setting up an independent distribution system from the Japanese would require time and money which we don't have."

To serve the U.S. market, Stevenson says that the fishermen would need a refrigerated vessel to carry salmon back to the lower 48 states and develop a distribution system to sell their catch: "That would take years."

Also, he fears that if the fisherman tried to challenge the hold of the trading companies there would be problems, because " the Japanese are not going to allow that market to get away and so they would bid the price up to keep the market."

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