“Today was not a good day, but if you look at the whole week, it makes up for it,” explains Jordi Vidaller, one of the youngest fishermen at the historic Serrallo seaport in Tarragona. He is 29 years old and grew up among fishermen. He knows perfectly well the difficulties of moving forward in a sector that feels mistreated by all administrations, especially by the Spanish and European ones. “We feel persecuted, as if we were criminals”, adds Vidaller, without stopping to unload the day’s catches on the dock.
When the fish arrives at the port, the obsession of every fisherman is to distribute it in boxes with ice and take it to the brotherhood as soon as possible to have everything ready when the market opens. The sustenance of the fishing boats, with their skippers and sailors, depends on a higher or lower quote.
Every year that passes there are fewer fishing boats in the Serrallo and in the set of ports on the Catalan coast. In the last decade, in the port of Tarragona, 50% of the boats have been scrapped, according to data from the Fishermen’s Guild of Tarragona. In a decade, if no action is taken, there will not be a single trawler left, they warn. Twenty years ago there were a hundred trawlers and about forty light boats, dedicated to the minor arts.
“They are fed up and tired of so much persecution and abandonment”, complains Esteve Ortiz, president of the Tarragona confraternity for two decades.
It’s five in the afternoon and to get an idea of ??the main demands of the sector, it’s enough to take a trip down the quay. The high price of diesel, with very critical moments in recent years; the excess of controls, inspections and sanctions by the central administration above all, with full competence; and the enormous amount of paperwork they have to fill out, now digitally: the damned bureaucracy.
“We have the same problems as farmers”, highlights Vidaller, about Maria Ferré II. The inspections are repeated, according to sailors and skippers, and they look at the size of the nets or the catches down to the millimeter. “We’re good at it,” insists Ortiz. “It seems that the administrations are fine with the disappearance of fishermen from the Catalan coast; all the fish will end up coming from outside”.
Another of the demands, as is the case with farmers, is that the same controls be demanded of the large amount of fish that arrives from non-EU countries. Labeling is another of the demands because they report that in many fish farms they do not comply with the regulations and the final consumer has no idea where the monkfish, prawn or pike that ends up on the table comes from.
There is also a parallel with the protests of farmers and ranchers regarding the rejection by the primary sector of what they consider to be an excess of zeal by environmentalists. They are opposed to the desire to make tougher bans as a response to the overexploitation of fishing resources.
Unlike what happens with agriculture, fishermen have some products that do pay a good price and become lifesavers. The red prawn is a paradigmatic example: the large prawn has recently been quoted on the Tarragona market at more than 100 euros per kilo, and 30-40 euros for the small one. Almost like Christmas. The demand for restoration is fundamental.
They are blessed exceptions because, in most cases, expenses have grown much more than the price of fish in the market.
There are few young people who dare to get on a boat or venture to study to end up as skippers or drivers. Andreu Domènech, uncle of Jordi Vidaller, son of fishermen, started going fishing at 14 years old. It continues four decades later despite the difficulties.
With almost no generational relief, in some ports, such as that of Tarragona, part of the void is filled by sailors from African countries. It is a general trend, also on a Spanish scale. Statistics show how the number of workers in the fishing sector is decreasing year after year. In 2022 there were around 29,000, 22% less than ten years ago.
