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Shrimp
war reveals an industry divided
The Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS — A month after an antidumping
petition was launched against shrimp from six
Asian and South American countries, the U.S.
shrimp industry resembles an assortment of brothers
and sisters and cousins disagreeing over how
to sell the family farm.
Processing plant owners are
aligned against the buyers and shippers — the seafood middle-men.
And the big high-tech rig fishermen are arm wrestling
the small-fry fishermen — “family
fishermen” bobbing and bouncing in weather-beaten
wooden Lafitte skiffs.
“The division of the industry is terribly
disruptive. However, I am not surprised it is
happening. The history of the shrimp industry
has proven that it faces an almost insurmountable
enemy: Itself,” said Jerald Horst of the
LSU AgCenter.
So far, three big players have come out:
* The Southern Shrimp Alliance.
It’s
the group that paid attorneys to write up the
petition for tariffs. It says it represents the
entire industry, but others claim it is overly
represented by processors and large-scale fishing
operations.
* The Louisiana Shrimp Association.
It’s
the group that rails against the Southern Shrimp
Alliance. Its leaders say they speak for the
everyday fishing folk. They also claim that as
written the antidumping petition could leave
thousands of fishermen — who can’t
freeze their shrimp on-board their freezerless
boats — flat out of federal compensation
money, or Byrd money.
* The American Seafood Distributors
Association. It’s the group that represents all the
seafood companies and trucking companies that
import and distribute the mountains of “shrimps” from
the four corners of the world. They are straight-faced
about it: the antidumping petition is anathema.
Just who to believe is the tricky part for so
many bread-and-butter shrimpers in Louisiana.
“To me, they’d better get their
things straight. They’ve got me so confused
right now, I don’t know what’s what,” said
Virginia Verdin, the wife of a full-time fisherman
south of Houma on Grand Caillou Road, shrimp
alley.
To outsiders like Verdin — who passively
keeps up with the daily developments in the fight
against cheap pond-raised imports through chatter
on the bayou and the local newspaper — the
in-fighting just doesn’t make sense.
“To me, instead of fighting against one
another, they should be helping each other. We’re
all in the same boat — we’re all
suffering,” Verdin said.
This month, a fourth group called for federal
and state investigations into the moneyraising
practices of the Louisiana Shrimp Association,
or LSA. The complaint was signed by former LSA
members, and it was spearheaded by current backers
of the Louisiana Shrimp Industry Coalition.
The Jan. 19 letter to New
Orleans U.S. Attorney Jim Letten and state
Attorney General Charles
Foti said: “We are concerned that money
collected through the Penny Per Pound Program
and other fundraisers have not been accounted
for and have not been spent for the purposes
for which they were collected by the organization.”
Throughout 2003, as the grassroots movement
to fight imports grew, hundreds of fishermen
gave a penny to the LSA for every pound of shrimp
they caught.
“It’s a vendetta. I welcome any
investigation of the Louisiana Shrimp Association
folks. But in turn I’d like an investigation
into the Louisiana shrimp industry,” retorted
A.J. Fabre, LSA leader.
“I’ve been hearing from people that
they thought their money was going towards petitions,
and we’re just concerned that the money
is not being used for what it was supposed to
be used for,” said Julie Falgout, executive
director of the Louisiana Shrimp Industry Coalition.
The allegation: LSA once promised to give the
money it got from the penny a pound collections
to an antidumping petition.
It’s entangled, as
all good tales from the sea are, like seaweed.
“They are saying we made a promise to
send money to SSA. LSA is the founder of SSA,” Fabre
said.
As for the Penny a Pound
pledge: Fabre said the pledge says the money
will go to help the
industry — whatever way is best.
“It’s just a big mess,” Verdin
sighed, thinking of the $225 that she gave to
the LSA cause.
Her suggestion? “Somebody
who knows about the shrimping business, they
should lead the
way.”
© The Lafayette Daily Advertiser
February 2, 2004
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