Post-harvest sector

Patrick A. McConney

Onshore facilities for post-harvest handling and storage

Having adequate onshore facilities for post-harvest handling and storage is becoming increasingly important for large pelagic fisheries. This is especially because of concerns about quality assurance for both the domestic and export markets and to ensure that local post-harvest enterprises remain competitive with imports in an era of trade liberalization.

Reported onshore facilities vary from basic beach facilities, through simple docks and sheds, to full processing plants in harbours (Table 43). For the processing of fish, cleaning, gutting and some type of cooling are most common. For fishery workers in the harvest sector, there may be gear lockers and other amenities. Because some facilities deal only with other types of seafood at present, the number of facilities available for pelagics could potentially increase rapidly should the need arise. Pelagics such as tuna and swordfish are targeted mainly at export markets governed by international quality standards such as the EU and HACCP systems. Facilities catering to these landings tend to be of a higher standard.

TABLE 43

Known onshore facilities for post-harvest handling and storage

Types of processing for large pelagics

Processing adds value to seafood. It allows access to different market niches, often offering higher prices and profits. Definitions of processing encompass minimal activities from washing and chilling to major transformations such as smoking or canning. In most of the countries, fish plants and supermarkets cut and package fish for domestic consumer sales. Fish such as yellowfin tuna are headed, gutted and chilled for immediate air export to overseas fresh-fish markets. In some cases, further processing would actually decrease the value reflected in the market price, because high-grade fresh fish fetch premium prices. Species of lesser value such as the smaller tunas are smoked or salted, mainly for domestic markets, although there has been some intraregional trade in these products.

Local marketing arrangements

For many years, marketing and distribution have been cited as the weakest aspects of fishing industry development in the Caribbean. The pattern of local landing-site gluts was commonplace, with depressed ex-vessel prices and adjacent inland areas devoid of fish. In this survey, local marketing arrangements exhibited a variety of channels. From vessel directly to consumer is the preferred route in several places, but sales through middlemen, and to processing plants and hotels were also common (Table 45). Where landings were mainly for export, local sales depended on the availability of fish species and grades that were considered less profitable overseas. At smaller landing sites and in places where pelagic fishery is less commercialized, kinship may play an important role in marketing activities and contribute to retaining income in the household.

Export arrangements

Arrangements for exporting seafood are becoming fairly consistent worldwide, as required by international trade practices. Fresh, chilled fish are exported by air to US markets from several of the islands. This is the most important overseas market at present. Due to the stricter EU criteria and procedures, several countries cannot export to Europe, even if this would be a commercially attractive proposition. Although some exports are undertaken by the harvest enterprises, it is more common for exports to go through processing companies or government marketing corporations.

TABLE 44

Types of processing for large pelagics

TABLE 45

Local marketing arrangements

The industrial fleet operated in Trinidad by Taiwanese concerns exports billfish, mostly marlins, to Barbados and to some other eastern Caribbean islands. For the fleet this is low value by-catch, but Barbados fish processors and importers have become highly dependent on it to supplement local landings, especially during the July to November decrease. There is great demand for this low-priced fish from the many small fish-fry businesses that have developed in recent years, with increasing popularity, to serve both locals and visitors.

Quality regulation/monitoring

Quality assurance is of increasing importance to both domestic and export markets, but is critical for the latter. Several countries have made, or are in the process of making, significant improvements to their fish-quality legislation and monitoring or inspection systems in order to maintain or gain access to international markets. Attempts to meet the standards of the European Union have been particularly instrumental in catalysing these changes, even more than for the less stringent HACCP system introduced for seafood in 1995 by the United States. Most countries and processing plants today take HACCP as standard operating procedure, but several have not been as successful in meeting EU standards.

The competent authorities for seafood quality assurance and control differ by country. The agencies responsible for public health, veterinary services, fisheries and fish marketing are involved to different extents in different countries. The involvement of the veterinary authorities in some places is mainly a result of EU certification preferences. In several countries, the fisheries authority has only recently assumed a higher profile in fish quality control owing to the need for an integrated approach from fishing grounds to final consumption. This includes training or retraining of fishery workers and officers.

TABLE 46

Export arrangements

Value-added estimates for the large pelagic fishery

Value is added to seafood through processing, as described earlier. The purpose of adding value is typically to obtain a higher return on the product. Processing for some species (e.g. drying and salting) serves equally, or more, as a method of preservation for extended shelf life than of adding value. Profit may even be reduced compared to a less processed product.

Few countries had quantitative data available for value added to pelagic landings (Table 48). These data are not maintained by fisheries authorities on a regular basis and are not easy to find in the literature. This reflects the relative absence of economic fisheries data in general, especially for small-scale fisheries and in smaller countries. It may also reflect the extent to which post-harvest sector planning has received less attention from governments than the harvest sector. Fisheries authorities in several countries indicated that fish processors are approached directly for this information on an ad hoc or request basis.

Employment in post-harvest handling and processing of pelagic fish

As a measure of contribution to the economy, and often as an index of value to political decision-makers, employment statistics are important figures. However, employment in the post-harvest sector for pelagic fisheries has not been a statistic routinely maintained by fisheries authorities (Table 49). Knowledgeable officials made very rough estimates based on government marketing facilities and private processing plants. Respondents in Guyana could not separate out the proportion of the 6 000 processing plant workers that handle pelagics. In Suriname pelagics use only excess processing capacity. In Saint Vincent and the Grenadines there is an estimated post-harvest work force of about 2 000 people, but few of them could be easily categorized.

TABLE 47

Fish quality regulation/monitoring

TABLE 48

Value-added estimates for the large pelagic fishery

Jobs and divisions of labour also change over time. As consumers become more demanding of quality and convenience, more cleaners, scalers and skinners become regular fishery workers, rather than occasional help. This has happened in Barbados. Several countries noted that vendors and fish-plant processing line workers are mostly women.

In cases such as Barbados, where a large opportunistic work force enters the postharvest sector when catches are good, a range of values for employment linked to landings may be more useful. This is similar to the fluctuating numbers of fish cars that operate in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Since few post-harvest workers depend solely on large pelagics, apportioning their employment in units such as person-days could be more meaningful than providing the total number of persons involved, no matter how minimal their work related to pelagics is.

Conclusions

For large pelagics, the post-harvest sector is less developed and specialized than the harvest sector, with the exception of some exported species, e.g. yellowfin tuna and swordfish, in the main fishing countries. Few post-harvest facilities cater mainly to pelagics, but most are suitable for handling them, at least for the domestic and perhaps regional markets. However, upgrades of physical facilities and quality-assurance procedures are necessary in most places if export is to be emphasized and Caribbean seafood is to be globally competitive. The significant success of very small, individual fishing operations in Grenada, resulting in sizeable exports of high-quality fish, could be a model for other countries if the resource is available in abundance and in proximity to fishing centres.

Further processing of the lesser-valued pelagics for local or regional markets could be explored to increase value added without much increase in catches. Value added for exported fish is less important, since market preference is for fresh, chilled fish, but lack of efficient handling and air transport can be constraints. Innovative value added through local, sometimes tourism-linked cultural enterprises, such as at Oistins, Gouyave and Gros Islet, could be extended to other locations but should not be overdone, as part of their charm is the novelty of their settings. In these places, seafood and local entertainment make an appealing cultural mix. It is uncertain whether links to tourism regarding restaurant and hotel supply are fully exploited, but these could be viable first alternatives for countries having seasonal gluts that may coincide with the peak tourist season.

TABLE 49

Number of persons employed in post-harvest handling and processing of pelagic fish

If by-catch becomes a large proportion of the intraregional fish trade upon which small entrepreneurs depend, the issue of by-catch from resident, foreign industrial fleets could become an important one. Policies on by-catch may become necessary, including guidelines on percentages to be landed rather than discarded at sea. This emphasizes the need to monitor restrictions in international agreements on by-catch to ensure that the foundation for small businesses remains stable.

Regarding international markets, better market intelligence on export markets and the cost of meeting the criteria for entry seem warranted. Some argue that the cost of meeting EU standards exceeds the value of benefits and that these standards are not always appropriate or essential for small post-harvest operations in producing a healthy product. Systematic benefit/cost analyses could assist governments and private investors in deciding how best to approach the indisputable need for quality assurance. Estimates of value added are other analyses urgently needed if arguments on the importance of pelagic fisheries are to be substantiated. This could be especially important in prompting pro-fishery and pro-management political decisions. The opportunistic flexibility in post-harvest employment is good in terms of labour-force mobility, but it also implies that large numbers of untrained or partly trained people may enter the subsector unnoticed or unmonitored. As this could compromise quality assurance, more attention needs to be paid to the implications of post-harvest sector mobility for human resource development.

In summary, while the post-harvest sector in a few countries is almost as efficient as one can expect for small-scale exporting, more attention has to be paid in all countries to the various means of improving quality assurance and to the development of innovative marketing in order to add value and ensure competitiveness.