English · Español
29 de julio de 2009 | Entrevistas | Soberanía Alimentaria
Good Regulation
Uruguay: Fish workers demand State policies
2:38 minutes
Descargar: MP3 (1.8 MB)
Fortunately, some Uruguayan unions have incorporated the political concept of food sovereignty into their speeches. One example is the National Union of Fishermen and Allied Workers (SUNTMA), which has adopted the proposals – raised by la Vía Campesina at the FAO World Summit in 1996- to demand greater state intervention in policies related to fisheries.
The data mentioned by the union are worrying: due to the use of fishing nets, approximately 140 thousand tons per year of edible fish -mostly young fish which do not reach the commercial size- are thrown back to the sea in Uruguay. “For each boat with fish that arrives to port, two are thrown to the sea. Drag fishing is predatory and has negative effects on the ecosystem”, denounced SUNTMA´s President, José Franco.
The union aims at a planned exploitation of the water resources through specific proposals, such as the creation of a Ministry of River, Sea and Port Interests; the development of a National Merchant Navy and a State Fishing Fleet; the creation of an organization to improve the accessibility to products and educational policies that allow to incorporate the consumption of fish.
In addition, the workers are discussing the passing of a Fishing Bill to preserve resources and consolidate the market for craft fisheries.
“In Uruguay, the fishing fleet is obsolete. They were built thirty years ago, which was proven by the University of the Republic and European delegations. The State fleet goes hand in hand with the planning of fishing policies, including multipurpose boats to avoid the dependence on the harvest seasons, and the development of shipbuilding, complementing chains of production with MERCOSUR”, said Franco.
Franco also pointed out that intervention policies are useful to regulate prices, and that it wasn´t a coincidence that the neoliberal strategy put an end to them, since this allowed the multinational companies to enter the market easily. “A consumer in Uruguay pays up to three times more for the hake we export to Spain than what the Spanish consumer does. This is an awful contradiction”, he said.
According to Franco, the military dictatorship defined that “the best fishing policy was no fishing policy at all”, which allowed for the concentration of production in oligopolies and monopolies, as is the case of Fripur (Urugayan Fish Processing Plant).
