{"id":99276,"date":"2022-12-05T14:48:41","date_gmt":"2022-12-05T09:18:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/?post_type=newss&p=99276"},"modified":"2022-12-05T14:48:41","modified_gmt":"2022-12-05T09:18:41","slug":"season-survival-fears-on-50-lobster-price-plunge-in-the-bahamas","status":"publish","type":"newss","link":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/newss\/season-survival-fears-on-50-lobster-price-plunge-in-the-bahamas\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Season survival\u2019 fears on 50% lobster price plunge in The Bahamas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fears were yesterday voiced that some Bahamian fishermen \u201cmay not survive the season\u201d as the industry seeks to \u201cweather the storm\u201d created by lobster tail prices plunging by up to 50 percent.<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/span>Paul Maillis, the National Fisheries Association\u2019s (NFA) secretary, told Tribune Business that fishermen who invested heavily in their vessels and operations in expectation that last year\u2019s prices \u201cof upwards of $20 per pound\u201d will be maintained are especially vulnerable to the drop-off.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Disclosing that seafood processors are paying fishermen as little as $10 per pound for lobster in some parts of The Bahamas, he attributed the \u201csuppressed prices\u201d to increased supply as rival sources such as South Africa ramp up production back to pre-pandemic levels with the lifting of COVID restrictions.<\/p>\n

<\/span>While catch volumes have held at 2021 levels, Mr Maillis told this newspaper that Family Island communities were being especially hard hit by the price fall-off. Besides having fewer sales outlets outside of processors and exporters, they are also feeling the general squeeze from inflation and cost pressures far more than New Providence.<\/p>\n

<\/span>With \u201cthe price of everything going up\u201d bar lobster, he added that some fishermen are now struggling to \u201cpay their bills\u201d and still hoping that the Government can provide some relief on fuel costs – possibly by diversifying supply sources if the US eases sanctions on Venezuela and allows the South American country to resume production in earnest once again.<\/p>\n

With one alternative income source cut-off for Bahamian fishermen yesterday through the end of Nassau grouper season, Mr Maillis said fears of an economic recession in major consumer markets such as the US, coupled with China\u2019s \u2018zero COVID\u2019 policy, could mean relatively low lobster prices persist for some time to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":4,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[177],"tags":[2096],"region":[1935],"source":[],"country":[9523],"state":[],"city":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newss\/99276"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newss"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/newss"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newss\/99276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99277,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newss\/99276\/revisions\/99277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99276"},{"taxonomy":"region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/region?post=99276"},{"taxonomy":"source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/source?post=99276"},{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=99276"},{"taxonomy":"state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/state?post=99276"},{"taxonomy":"city","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/city?post=99276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}