Changing Tastes

We've been watching a series on Cornish fishermen on BBC2, which was filmed over last year (Cornwall: A Fishing Life). If I were a fish and wanted to hide from fishermen, the best place appears to be in the middle of a fishing harbour. The professional fishermen never, ever fish in their harbours. The most you get is anglers.

The subject of Brexit obviously came up and a minority of the fishermen expressed concern about their viability if tariffs were introduced (the series was filmed prior to the deal), as much of their catch is destined for the EU, but the majority simply wanted a larger share of the existing quota, which primarily went to to the larger UK operators when the quotas were auctioned off to the highest bidder. A large catch  for the larger concerns perhaps means another house or car, rather than survival, as is the case for the small operators who fish in-shore.

One fisherman was rather pragmatic and admitted that fishermen were greedy and that increasing quotas would be counterproductive, as overfishing would once more plague the industry, which was the cause of its decline ever since the early 1900s. A redistribution would be more effective.

Fishermen who rely on selling to the EU are now complaining that the introduction of health certificates, customs declarations and other paperwork that they didn't have to deal with previously has added days to delivery times and hundreds of pounds to the cost of each load sent to the EU, undermining a system that used to put fresh seafood into French shops just over a day after it was harvested. They're fishermen who spend all their time fishing to make a living, not bureaucrats. They were sold a pup, as well as being sold down the river.

Because the UK's taste for fish has changed dramatically over the years, to the extent that we favour imported species to domestic ones, it strikes me that all it would take to change this would be for fishermen to lobby a few TV chefs to create dishes based on domestic species. Whatever Delia, Nigella or Jamie promote on their cookery shows immediately sells out on the next day. The aim has to be to change the market - it simply doesn't make sense to import fish for domestic consumption and export fish for EU consumption. Perhaps Farage could move into becoming a celebrity chef to help clean up the mess he's made...