Owners of a significant part of the Algarve’s fishing fleet have threatened an all out strike against an ‘overnight decision’ by the authorities that all fish are sorted into species before sale.
Miguel Cardoso, the president of the Organisation of Algarve Fishermen (OLHÃOPESCA) said today that 50 fishing boats already have stopped work and will remain in harbour until Docapesca again allows the weighing and auctioning of mixed containers of fish.
The decision by the ship owners to keep their boats in harbour was taken on Tuesday after four vessels were stopped by the Inspection General of Fisheries and prevented from selling sardines, horse mackerel and mackerel at the fish market in Portimão as different species of fish were being sold by the container, as is traditional along the Algarve.
According to Miguel Cardoso, the fish species are always mixed as when the fish are brought on board they are put into large containers for storage and later sale, "there is always a small degree of mixing of species."
The process that now is being insisted on by the authority Docapesca requires that the fishermen, catching thousands of fish in often dangerous conditions, separate each species and put them in different storage containers while at sea.
According to the owners and managers of the fleet "it is impossible to sort these fish one by one."
So far, the mixed containers have been sold on the basis of a sample container being analysed and the rest sold as per the percentage of each fish contained in the sample container.
"What is happening now is that the Inspection General of Fisheries does not want this process to carry on and it requires that the fish are sorted species by species and weighed to the exact gramme, rather than being sold by the container. This is not feasible," said Cardoso who added that about 50 boats in the fishing fleet in the Algarve will remain "united and in harbour" until Docapesca defines the conditions for the sale at auction of containers of mixed fish.
The storage of fish on deck into containers means handling is simplified and the quality of fish, especially sardines which are highly perishable, is consistently high.
The fleets based at Portimão, Quarteira and Olhão are solid and others are to join the strike as the new rule affects all fishing boats in the Algarve.
