Prawn fishermen in northern Queensland say they don’t know how their industry is going to survive.

Despite promising conditions like early rains, catches around Mackay have been less than half of what’s expected in an average year.

Danny Pope has been a fishermen for 44 years.

He has caught less than half the banana prawns he’d usually catch this time of year.

Danny Pope says they only get paid $5 per kilo for the produce they are currently catching and it’s getting pointless to keep operating.

“We are finding that the quality of the prawn is a smaller count prawn rather than then bigger count prawn, so we would expect normally to be catching half and half. But at the moment it’s basically 99 per cent in the smaller grades.”

He thinks prices in supermarkets haven’t decreased and somebody in the chain is taking too much without paying fishermen their share.

“The industry is at a point where if the price doesn’t firm up, there will be no industry. We cannot keep going on the prices we are getting.”

Part of the problem, he feels, is a lack of competition among marketers.

“Since the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority restructure within the green zones, and buy outs, taking out not only boats but marketers, we have less competition.”

Mackay wholesaler and exporter David Caracciolo agrees the industry is struggling to survive, but doesn’t think that prawn fishers earn less because middlemen take too much.

He says the problem is the high dollar, increasing operation costs, cheap imports, and an ageing work force.

“I personally don’t think the fishing industry is going to survive unless something happens very soon.”

The Chairman of the Seafood Importers Association of Australasia Norman Grant says it’s true that the industry is doing it tough, but says imports are definitely not to blame.

“Prawn imports have declined substantially since 2007. They are down 30 or 40 per cent since 2007, so there is certainly no increase in prawn imports.”

He says the global price for prawns has decreased due to prawn farming around the world.

And he says people aren’t willing to pay high prices for seafood anymore.

Story on ABC website: https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2011-04-07/tough-times-for-prawn-fishermen/6187468

Longer audio version on ABC Rural: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-04-07/fishermen-and-wholesalers-have-a-tough-time-making/6187486