US makes a meal of shrimp dispute

[Pan]

I came across this Asia Times article, so I would be remiss not to post selected bits of text and a link, though it's way too long and complex for me to deal with at this ongodly hour. Here's the beginning of the article:

On November 30, the International Trade Commission (ITC), an agency of the US Department of Commerce charged with enforcing trade laws, placed a countrywide tariff of 112.81% on imported Chinese shrimp, and a much lower one of 25.76% on Vietnamese shrimp. However, the majority of the shrimps exported from both countries are sold by several large companies, and the ITC applied much lower, company-specific tariffs to these firms, averaging 55% for Chinese exporters and only 4% for Vietnamese ones.

Effectively, the decision to impose trade barriers on the US's most popular seafood was a muddled compromise between an informal coalition of Asian shrimp exporters and American shrimp buyers on one side, and threatened US shrimp fishermen on the other.

Perhaps one of you fine guys or gals would like to summarize the other substantive points.

[The Cynical Chef]

I came across this Asia Times article, so I would be remiss not to post selected bits of text and a link, though it's way too long and complex for me to deal with at this ongodly hour. Here's the beginning of the article:

On November 30, the International Trade Commission (ITC), an agency of the US Department of Commerce charged with enforcing trade laws, placed a countrywide tariff of 112.81% on imported Chinese shrimp, and a much lower one of 25.76% on Vietnamese shrimp. However, the majority of the shrimps exported from both countries are sold by several large companies, and the ITC applied much lower, company-specific tariffs to these firms, averaging 55% for Chinese exporters and only 4% for Vietnamese ones.

Effectively, the decision to impose trade barriers on the US's most popular seafood was a muddled compromise between an informal coalition of Asian shrimp exporters and American shrimp buyers on one side, and threatened US shrimp fishermen on the other.

Perhaps one of you fine guys or gals would like to summarize the other substantive points.

←

Better a trade war than a shooting war!

Boat caught shrimp from American waters account for only 12.5 percent of all of the shrimp eaten in this country with the rest imported from the shrimp-farming countries of Brazil, Thailand, Vietnam, Ecuador, China & India. The shrimp coming out of the far east is usually Tiger shrimp and a lot of these shrimp are peeled, cooked and frozen. Yummy! Get this, China produces almost 500,000 metric tons of farm raised shrimp and the US exports as much as 25% and it's growing everyday. Another sign of the Wal Mart-ization of our country. Why pay someone (a skilled cook) to handle, properly store, peel and properly cook a highly volatile product such as fresh shrimp when you can buy frozen, peeled and cooked shrimp for less money? How else could Red Lobster offer all you can eat shrimp for 8.99 (9.99?)?

The average per capita income in China is about $1,000 US. Can you imagine a Louisiana shrimper trying to live off of a grand? Ain't possible.

The imported shrimp market has big friends in the form of Darden Restaurants, Contessa Seafood, and the rest of the Long John Silver's crowd. US shrimpers are typically small to medium size operators that sell directly to distributors. In China the farm owner sells to distributors but there are only a few distributors and remember we are talking about an enormous industry (Chinese farm raised shrimp) selling to another enormous industry (American semi fast food conglomerates). The American shrimper has to pay for his boat, insurance, federal, state & local permits & taxes, fuel, his crew, nets and on and on. The Chinese (Ecuadoran, Indian, Vietnamese...) shrimper has no such costs and his crew is used to living on a thousand bucks a year. Shrimp farms are on the coast in about 6 to 8 feet of water. Occasionally the FDA may quarantine a shipment of shrimp with unacceptably high levels of antibiotics but for every one caught how many get through? We know this because of the 1997 Imported Crayfish Tariff testimony. These countries have no version of DHEC, FDA or OSHA looking over their shoulders and there is no way that the millions & millions of pounds of imported seafood can be inspected by the FDA.

The solution is tariffs that will effectively raise the price of imported shrimp to bring it more closely in line with typical prices. 2 years ago I was paying about $7.00 a pound for 26-30 (average number of shrimp per pound) count American, fresh white shrimp. This shrimp season those same little guys are about $5.50 a pound because of the cheap imports. More & more restaurants are buying the cheaper imported product thereby pressuring the American shrimpers into cutting their prices.

Vietnam sells a smaller percentage of shrimp to the US market, so smaller tariffs but the larger companies in China supposedly have been routing their product through Vietnam.

As a greater percentage of American diners lose the use of their taste buds, more American artisan food producers will lose their livelihood. If you ever ate an imported, pre-cooked, frozen and reheated shrimp side by side with a fresh, domestic shrimp there would be no comparison....none whatsoever! Unfortunately the general dining public is so used to eating crap while being convinced by the marketers that what they are eating is actually" Joyous, Mouth Watering, Pure Sensual Pleasure!"

Too many of us vote with our pocketbooks.

Fried Shrimp anyone?

Edited December 9, 2004 by The Cynical Chef (log)

[bloviatrix]

Coincidentally, last night on The West Wing, Bartlett was travelling to China for trade talks and shrimp dumping was one of the issues under discussions.

[The Cynical Chef]

Now how's about a little conspiracy theory? It is no secret that China desperately wants Taiwan back as part of China proper. In 1994 China made some pretty serious military threats to Taiwan and Bill Clinton sent in the Navy. The straits of Taiwan are very narrow by blue water navy standards, only 180 clicks but at the time China had an unsignificant military repsonse because they had no reasonable defense against a US Navy Nuclear Carrier Task Force and all of the weaponry that it carries. Not today! China has been on a major shopping spree as far as blue water navy equipment and air & land based anti-ship weapons goes. It is extremely doubtful that even a cowboy president (GWBush) would do the same thing today. When China says to the world "we are invading Taiwan to throw out the puppet government and restore this island back to the Chinese people" we will bitch and moan diplomatically but no way would we send in the 7th Fleet. Ain't gonna happen.

By then we will be buying soooo much stuff from the Chinese that we will just have to turn our eyes away. Wal Mart alone is on track to export 18 billion this year in merchandise from China. 18 billion!

The real challenge is this: Can Capitalism & the Internet over take and soften the Chinese government before the old line Communists insist on invading Taiwan and possibly plunging the Far East into war?

Perhaps 100 years from now Wal Mart will be credited with preventing war?

Shoud we continue to devour Chinese shrimp (catfish, salmon, crayfish, bicycles, cellphones, printers...) in order to help bring a democratic government to China?

Are those American shrimpers put out of work actually fallen soldiers in an economic cold war?

[johnnyd]

Here in Maine, the Gulf of Maine shrimp are caught in winter during a season that is anywhere between two weeks and two months. The prices have been wild the past few years. Fresh off the boat, heads and all, were $5/lb and dressed down shrimp cost $7.99 or more, back in '97. The harvest was huge but declined, raising the price a bit (they don't travel well when fresh and the shelflife is fleeting). Two years ago, prices were around $3/whole and $4.99/dressed. Last year, the two-week season, and freezing facilities expanded, the harvest was heavy, but prices plummeted on the first day at auction, and 40% of that harvest sat unsold. Retail prices were under a dollar for whole shrimp and about $2.99 for dressed shrimp.

Why the breakdown? The gulf of maine shrimp is incredibly sweet and delicious, but small, maybe fourty or more per pound. They have a certain cachet and do well as amaebi at sushi bars. They are a pain in the ass to prep and too delicate for some recipes. I can only see the dumpage by China as the reason why our local shrimpers didn't bother to go out of port for a week after the auction debacle, which was half of their whole season last year, because the chinese whites were cheap, frozen into those 5lb bricks and much easier to work with.

And Cynical Chef has it right: americans have been raised on the frozen stuff so the demand for fresh domestic shrimp is not even considered outside of a shrimping port where the locals know what's what.

The tarriff might hold the price at a more reasonable level this time. I hope the Maine shrimp boats do well this year - the product is amazing.

[NulloModo]

I prefer fresh shrimp to frozen when I can get them, but I'm personally only willing to pay so much of a premium to get them.

The 'dumping' by China et al. has had the benefit of keeping prices on fresh domestic shrimp more reasonable. That is why I am wary of such measures as these tariffs, which hurt free-market competition and will artificially inflate the price of the U.S. shrimp. I am all for supporting our local fishermen, as long as the product is as good or better than what you can get from overseas, but if the price goes from $7 a lb to $14 a lb because of the move, I will be perfectly happy eating Chinese shrimp, or no shrimp at all.

[jhlurie]

This must be timely. A TV show I haven't watched in about 3 years (I only watched last night to see that blowhard Alan Alda, who was a guest star), the West Wing, just had this as a plot. They threw around some statistics which I didn't note too exactly, but claimed that something like 50% of our shrimp comes from China alone, and that our shrimpers could never make up the difference anyway. The issue of what we'd be able to do about Vietnam was part of the broadcast as well--apparently the filter the show's writers see through worries that any kind of action either for OR against Vietnam would be some kind of political hot potato!

[Gifted Gourmet]

Perhaps because I am so intimately connected with the Southeast Forum on eGullet, this website was precisely what I was looking for when this topic came up:

The Southern Shrimp Alliance

The Southern Shrimp Alliance (SSA) is a dynamic alliance of eight southern coastal states from North Carolina to Texas, representing the harvesters, processors, and distributors of American wild caught shrimp, dedicated to giving the consumer the most natural, tasty, and healthy product the waters of this country can provide in an environmentally friendly sustainable manner, and thereby bringing long term stability to the domestic shrimp industry.

and the inevitable question of how this situation evolves with China will be of considerable interest, not only to us in the Southeastern United States ...

Latest news from the SSA

I certainly have to agree with Cynical Chef on many of his comments in this thread... but here is what especially interests me in regard to the Southeast US:

Shrimping is vital to hundreds of coastal communities throughout the southeast, bringing in billions of dollars in revenue, taxes, and purchases from supporting businesses. For every one job in the United States processing imported shrimp, there are 21 persons involved harvesting and processing wild-caught domestic shrimp.don’t think consumers have benefited from the low wholesale prices of dumped shrimp. While the wholesale price of shrimp dropped 42 percent, shrimp entrée prices actually skyrocketed as much as 28 percent between 2000 and 2003.

SSA Press Release on this topic

[robyn]

Catching up on old messages.

I am a total free trade person. Do any of you who advocate protecting US shrimpers also advocate tariffs on things like underwear - so people in the US can protect southern textile jobs and wind up paying what Europeans pay for underwear (my husband once had occasion to buy underwear in Europe - and it was about 5 times as espensive as what he was used to paying at home).

Or what about cars? How about a $10,000 tariff on that Toyota you just bought - to force you to buy a Ford?

And of course we could extend this to other food industries. I just made a batch of pesto today (before the freeze got the last of my basil). I buy my pine nuts at Costco. They're from China. How about tariffs on Chinese pine nuts so they'll cost $30/pound instead of $13.

By the way - I happen to live in an area where there's a shrimp fleet. Shrimp are running now - and our local shrimp are cheap. I've never found decent Florida shrimp to be any more expensive than imported shrimp (except for those teeny-weenies in a bag which I don't use). But assuming I could get imported shrimp for 1/2 the price of the local stuff - same quality - why should 15 million people in Florida subsidize perhaps a few thousand people who make a living catching shrimp? Robyn

P.S. Once you get into the subsidy argument - you're on a slippery slope. A lot of the "seafood arguments" here in Florida aren't between local people and the Chinese - they're between good old boys and people who came here from places like Vietnam. The latter work longer hours - are more frugal with money - pool family resources - can make more money selling things cheaper - etc. - and they drive the "good old boys" nuts. Some of the incidents over the years have been pretty nasty (things like boat burnings). So after we impose the tariffs - do we impose "support prices" for domestic shrimp and seafood (which basically means that people will eat twice as many burgers and half as much seafood)?

Edited December 15, 2004 by robyn (log)

[robyn]

Here in Maine, the Gulf of Maine shrimp are caught in winter during a season that is anywhere between two weeks and two months.  The prices have been wild the past few years.  Fresh off the boat, heads and all, were $5/lb and dressed down shrimp cost $7.99 or more, back in '97.  The harvest was huge but declined, raising the price a bit (they don't travel well when fresh and the shelflife is fleeting).  Two years ago, prices were around $3/whole and $4.99/dressed.  Last year, the two-week season, and freezing facilities expanded, the harvest was heavy, but prices plummeted on the first day at auction, and 40% of that harvest sat unsold.  Retail prices were under a dollar for whole shrimp and about $2.99 for dressed shrimp.

Why the breakdown?  The gulf of maine shrimp is incredibly sweet and delicious, but small, maybe fourty or more per pound.  They have a certain cachet and do well as amaebi at sushi bars. They are a pain in the ass to prep and too delicate for some recipes. I can only see the dumpage by China as the reason why our local shrimpers didn't bother to go out of port for a week after the auction debacle, which was half of their whole season last year, because the chinese whites were cheap, frozen into those 5lb bricks and much easier to work with. 

And Cynical Chef has it right: americans have been raised on the frozen stuff so the demand for fresh domestic shrimp is not even considered outside of a shrimping port where the locals know what's what.

The tarriff might hold the price at a more reasonable level this time.  I hope the Maine shrimp boats do well this year - the product is amazing.

←

It's more expensive to live in and operate a shrimp fleet in the northeast US than northeast Florida. So should our shrimpers be prohibited from selling their catch for less than shrimpers in the northeast?

Also - unless you happen to live on or very near a coastal area where there's a shrimp fleet - the chances of your getting fresh shrimp are none. And if you could get them - you wouldn't want them. Here in the Jacksonville area of Florida - we get fresh Mayport shrimp (from Jacksonville). But the shrimp from south Florida and the Keys are frozen (and - if they weren't frozen - they'd be half rotten by the time they got to us).

And who the heck wants to pay anything for 36-40+ shrimp? I don't. Not when I can get 16-20 fresh Mayport shrimp retail at Publix for $10/pound. Robyn

[FaustianBargain]

Maybe people are eating way too much shrimp comforted by the fact that it is cheap? Food is not cheap. It comes with a price and sometimes at a price that is not always visible. I sometimes fear for the American economy. Usually it lasts for no more than a few seconds. This is a perfect example of "what goes around comes around". Welcome to the globalized world. Almost everyone has been through it. And survived.

p.s. robyn: cotton is *the* most heavily subsidised crop in the US. Europeon underwear isnt expensive. American underwear is cheap. When I first moved to London, I was appalled by how everything was almost double the price of American goods. Eventually, I stopped converting pounds into dollars. Also, underwear is over-rated.

unrelatedly:

Growth in GDP Third Quarter 2004

United States 3.9%

Eurozone 0.3%

Japan 0.1%

That happened because of everything that is despised..outsourcing, tax breaks to the top 1% etc. Meanwhile, those in the 'eurozone' probably claim a better 'standard of living'. There ya go. Please drive through and proceed to tear your hair out. Thank you very much.

[CharityCase]

In terms of food safety and security, development of the communities where shrimp is harvested, and environmental sustainability I'm afriad Shrimping is a whole lot of bad news.

In the Egullet world I'm really taken aback that there are people who profess a love of food, it's origins, its history and its importance...and yet ultimately make their consumptive choice solely on price.

One of the most critical social problems identified by local peoples as part of expansion of the Blue Revolution is the loss of communal resources - including mangrove areas, estuaries, and fishing grounds - that local people depend on for both subsistence and commercial economic activities. Commercial shrimp farming has displaced local communities, exacerbated conflicts and provoked violence involving property and tenant rights, decreased the quality and quantity of drinking water, increased local food insecurity, and threatened human health.

The major questions to ask include, do the touted benefits of shrimp farming outweigh the risks/costs to local people and environments? Do employment opportunities compensate for declines in access to communal resources and other social and cultural costs? Are the environmental and human costs balanced in some way by improving local lives, livelihoods, and cultures?

[The Cynical Chef]

In terms of food safety and security, development of the communities where shrimp is harvested, and environmental sustainability I'm afriad Shrimping is a whole lot of bad news.

In the Egullet world I'm really taken aback that there are people who profess a love of food, it's origins, its history and its importance...and yet ultimately make their consumptive choice solely on price.

One of the most critical social problems identified by local peoples as part of expansion of the Blue Revolution is the loss of communal resources - including mangrove areas, estuaries, and fishing grounds - that local people depend on for both subsistence and commercial economic activities. Commercial shrimp farming has displaced local communities, exacerbated conflicts and provoked violence involving property and tenant rights, decreased the quality and quantity of drinking water, increased local food insecurity, and threatened human health.

The major questions to ask include, do the touted benefits of shrimp farming outweigh the risks/costs to local people and environments? Do employment opportunities compensate for declines in access to communal resources and other social and cultural costs? Are the environmental and human costs balanced in some way by improving local lives, livelihoods, and cultures?

←

And the answer would be "No" but who wants to hear that? The succesful shrimp farmer in Viet Nam that can now afford a new car or the executive at Red Lobster that is watching his (or her) bonus go up with his decreasing food cost. Not likely. Meanwhile the many negative side effects of this go largely unreported or brushed aside.

I, however cringe at the mere mention of all-you-can-eat anything for the low, low price of......

[robyn]

Maybe people are eating way too much shrimp comforted by the fact that it is cheap? Food is not cheap. It comes with a price and sometimes at a price that is not always visible. I sometimes fear for the American economy. Usually it lasts for no more than a few seconds. This is a perfect example of "what goes around comes around". Welcome to the globalized world. Almost everyone has been through it. And survived.

p.s. robyn: cotton is *the* most heavily subsidised crop in the US. Europeon underwear isnt expensive. American underwear is cheap. When I first moved to London, I was appalled by how everything was almost double the price of American goods. Eventually, I stopped converting pounds into dollars. Also, underwear is over-rated.

unrelatedly:

Growth in GDP Third Quarter 2004

United States 3.9%

Eurozone 0.3%

Japan 0.1%

That happened because of everything that is despised..outsourcing, tax breaks to the top 1% etc. Meanwhile, those in the 'eurozone' probably claim a better 'standard of living'. There ya go. Please drive through and proceed to tear your hair out. Thank you very much.

←

Well what should people eat? Perhaps we're eating more salmon in the US now than we used to because it's $4.99/pound instead of $14.99/pound - but there are worse things than eating salmon. Note that I'm not advocating overeating. It's just nice to have relatively cheap ingredients available. At the opposite end of the spectrum is a country like Norway - where ingredients are ridiculously expensive. I can understand the political decisions which make food expensive in Norway - but it's not something I'd like to see the US emulate (and it doesn't have to).

And cotton is the cheapest part of underwear (or any type of clothing). Labor's the most expensive part of clothing (unless you're talking about royalties to Michael Jordan for Nike sneakers).

People can debate about standards of living. I'm sure there are lots of people in all first world countries who think they enjoy good standards of living - and some who don't. Since political debate isn't the subject of this website - I'll leave the issue of who's right - and who's wrong - to another place. Robyn

[robyn]

In terms of food safety and security, development of the communities where shrimp is harvested, and environmental sustainability I'm afriad Shrimping is a whole lot of bad news.

In the Egullet world I'm really taken aback that there are people who profess a love of food, it's origins, its history and its importance...and yet ultimately make their consumptive choice solely on price.

One of the most critical social problems identified by local peoples as part of expansion of the Blue Revolution is the loss of communal resources - including mangrove areas, estuaries, and fishing grounds - that local people depend on for both subsistence and commercial economic activities. Commercial shrimp farming has displaced local communities, exacerbated conflicts and provoked violence involving property and tenant rights, decreased the quality and quantity of drinking water, increased local food insecurity, and threatened human health.

The major questions to ask include, do the touted benefits of shrimp farming outweigh the risks/costs to local people and environments? Do employment opportunities compensate for declines in access to communal resources and other social and cultural costs? Are the environmental and human costs balanced in some way by improving local lives, livelihoods, and cultures?

←

I'm not sure I understand what you're talking about. Shrimp farms in the US - or somewhere else? The shrimp that come from where I live aren't farmed. So what area(s) of the world are you talking about? Robyn

[robyn]

And the answer would be "No" but who wants to hear that?  The succesful shrimp farmer in Viet Nam that can now afford a new car or the executive at Red Lobster that is watching his (or her) bonus go up with his decreasing food cost.   Not likely.  Meanwhile the many negative side effects of this go largely unreported or brushed aside. 

I, however cringe at the mere mention of all-you-can-eat anything for the low, low price of......

←

Don't you trust the people in Vietnam to do what's best for them (assuming that's where you're talking about in terms of shrimp)? Perhaps the people in that country should be able to choose for themselves whether a major domestic industry will be farmed fish production or something more pernicious (like the sex trade in young children in certain Asia countries). Is your primary goal to protect the mangroves in Asia - or the good old boy shrimpers in the Gulf Coast of the US? Robyn

Edited December 16, 2004 by robyn (log)

[Gul_Dekar]

And the answer would be "No" but who wants to hear that?  The succesful shrimp farmer in Viet Nam that can now afford a new car or the executive at Red Lobster that is watching his (or her) bonus go up with his decreasing food cost.   Not likely.  Meanwhile the many negative side effects of this go largely unreported or brushed aside. 

I, however cringe at the mere mention of all-you-can-eat anything for the low, low price of......

←

Don't you trust the people in Vietnam to do what's best for them (assuming that's where you're talking about in terms of shrimp)? Perhaps the people in that country should be able to choose for themselves whether a major domestic industry will be farmed fish production or something more pernicious (like the sex trade in young children in certain Asia countries). Is your primary goal to protect the mangroves in Asia - or the good old boy shrimpers in the Gulf Coast of the US? Robyn

←

I think the IMF, World Bank and the whole world capitalist system has a hand in all of this. The South American and Asian countries Cynical Chef mentioned don't all just dig up their mangrove swamps to do shrimp farming cuz 'hey, shrimp farming can earn me lotsa dough to buy a new Ferrari'. Part of the reason why these countries got involved in these practices in the first place is under the encouragement of the IMF et al. in order to repay their country's debt. Sure, some people in these countries might earn a bucketload out of the whole thing but the majority of the population ain't getting any richer.

So in the end, a small proportion of wealthy businessmen in some third world country profit, the rest have to live with it, and people in the West get shrimp cheap. West enjoys pristine clean waters while rest of world gets to screw themselves. I just find it offensive that one would imply something like "shrimp farming is preventing child sex labour in certain Asian countries" because there is nothing further from the truth.

And why does the dangers of salmon farming get so much coverage in the press yet shrimp farming not so much? Me thinks it's mostly because people in the West are directly affected by salmon farming but not as much in the case of shrimp.

[The Cynical Chef]

Robyn I think you overestimate my super human crime fighting powers. I am but a lowly cook, e gullet memeber, Beard member, slow food proponent. All of our hemming & hawing could not possibly influence global events. As for not trusting the Vietnamese to do what's right I can only say this. I do not trust ANYONE that I do not know very well. I have a great amount of trust in the owner of my local Vietnamese market where I have shopped for years and I can only guess that this man is from Viet Nam but never having asked him.......this is pointless.

As countries gradually embrace capitalism it is inevitable that a small minority will profit at the expense of others. Those others may be close neighbors or distant relatives.

It is my position that somewhere in Viet Nam (or India, Pakistan, Guatemala, China....) there are dedicated cooks that are bemoaning the fact that too many of their contemporaries are turning their backs on hand made foods that celebrate the local culture. That is happening in my town, my state, my country and I gather that it is a common condition all over the world. As food processing technology grows there will be a great many people that will rejoice in having to spend less time in the kitchen.

That is why a talented cook or professional chef is looked upon by the non-cooking segment as a magician.

My point is that people all over the world are embracing convenience foods at great loss to their cultures but significant impact to the bottom line of a few.

[robyn]

I think politics may be getting in the way of reality here. In another thread - I mentioned a news article last night about huge restaurants in China. The main thrust of the article was that there were so many more people in China with middle-class incomes than there used to be that dozens of these mega-restaurants were opening to meet local demand for a relatively new-fangled thing for most people - "eating out".

Does middle class in China mean what it means in the US? No. But it means that a lot of people are living a lot better than 30 years ago. And that means mom doesn't have to/want to sit home stirring stuff in a pot over a wood-burning fire for hours night after night. That's a National Geographic view of the world (everything primitive is better). I'm sure mom enjoys her new clothes - and the opportunity to have someone else wait on her - even if the food she's eating isn't just like grandma used to make.

For what it's worth - I find the National Geographic view of the world somewhat patronizing. And I think there are a whole lot of people in China who prefer GM golden rice to famine. To me - the sin is when snotty Europeans try to convince starving Africans that it's better to do things the old way than to try GM crops so people won't starve.

I appreciate fine hand-crafted food. And - being upper-middle class - I can afford to make it at home - or buy it at restaurants (I have both time and money). Most people in the world don't have that luxury - and I think it would be presumptuous of me to impose my preferences on them. Robyn

[The Cynical Chef]

I think politics may be getting in the way of reality here.  In another thread - I mentioned a news article last night about huge restaurants in China.  The main thrust of the article was that there were so many more people in China with middle-class incomes than there used to be that dozens of these mega-restaurants were opening to meet local demand for a relatively new-fangled thing for most people - "eating out".

Does middle class in China mean what it means in the US?  No.  But it means that a lot of people are living a lot better than 30 years ago.  And that means mom doesn't have to/want to sit home stirring stuff in a pot over a wood-burning fire for hours night after night.  That's a National Geographic view of the world (everything primitive is better).  I'm sure mom enjoys her new clothes - and the opportunity to have someone else wait on her - even if the food she's eating isn't just like grandma used to make.

For what it's worth - I find the National Geographic view of the world somewhat patronizing.  And I think there are a whole lot of people in China who prefer GM golden rice to famine.  To me - the sin is when snotty Europeans try to convince starving Africans that it's better to do things the old way than to try GM crops so people won't starve.

I appreciate fine hand-crafted food.  And - being upper-middle class - I can afford to make it at home - or buy it at restaurants (I have both time and money).  Most people in the world don't have that luxury - and I think it would be presumptuous of me to impose my preferences on them.  Robyn

←

Agree

[ghostrider]

Here in Maine, the Gulf of Maine shrimp are caught in winter during a season that is anywhere between two weeks and two months.  The prices have been wild the past few years.  Fresh off the boat, heads and all, were $5/lb and dressed down shrimp cost $7.99 or more, back in '97.  The harvest was huge but declined, raising the price a bit (they don't travel well when fresh and the shelflife is fleeting).  Two years ago, prices were around $3/whole and $4.99/dressed.  Last year, the two-week season, and freezing facilities expanded, the harvest was heavy, but prices plummeted on the first day at auction, and 40% of that harvest sat unsold.  Retail prices were under a dollar for whole shrimp and about $2.99 for dressed shrimp.

Why the breakdown?  The gulf of maine shrimp is incredibly sweet and delicious, but small, maybe fourty or more per pound.  They have a certain cachet and do well as amaebi at sushi bars. They are a pain in the ass to prep and too delicate for some recipes. I can only see the dumpage by China as the reason why our local shrimpers didn't bother to go out of port for a week after the auction debacle, which was half of their whole season last year, because the chinese whites were cheap, frozen into those 5lb bricks and much easier to work with. 

And Cynical Chef has it right: americans have been raised on the frozen stuff so the demand for fresh domestic shrimp is not even considered outside of a shrimping port where the locals know what's what.

The tarriff might hold the price at a more reasonable level this time.  I hope the Maine shrimp boats do well this year - the product is amazing.

←

And who the heck wants to pay anything for 36-40+ shrimp? I don't. Not when I can get 16-20 fresh Mayport shrimp retail at Publix for $10/pound. Robyn

←

Well, if I lived in Maine, I sure as heck would. Because I know exactly how good they are.

Even frozen & out of season, they still beat the imported stuff.

Edited December 20, 2004 by ghostrider (log)

[Pan]

Robyn, the difficulty some people have with GMO products is the "law of unintended consequences." If they are in fact the difference between starvation and plenty anywhere, that's an extremely powerful argument in their favor. But if there exists the possibility that unintended terrible consequences could ensue from their introduction, that's a fairly strong argument against them. And there certainly exists enough food to feed every mouth in the world today; the problems are largely matters of politics (especially war, probably), economic inequality, and poor distribution in various places. And I say that in full awareness that there are local examples of severe soil erosion from continuous overgrazing for thousands of years, as in Ethiopia. So locally, there are places where the land has exceeded its carrying capacity, but on a worldwide basis, we have yet to near conditions of true scarcity of food. What the future will bring is another question.

[johnnyd]

To correct a prior post:

Last year's shrimp season was 40 days, not two weeks.

This year's shrimp season started on the 19th and will run for 70 days with days off for Xmas and NYD. I have just arrived from Harbor Fish Market with one of many pounds I plan to buy this winter.

Today's Prices:

Whole Shrimp (head/legs-on) $1.49

Headless (but w/shell, legs) $3.99

Shelled totally: $6.99

The Portland Fish Exchange held its first shrimp auction on Sunday December 19. Exchange buyers offered 55 cents for the 9,400 pounds of shrimp consigned; seller representatives declined the price.

Edited December 20, 2004 by johnnyd (log)

[CharityCase]

Before I go off quoting a few things here, I think we need to tackle this statement:

People can debate about standards of living. I'm sure there are lots of people in all first world countries who think they enjoy good standards of living - and some who don't. Since political debate isn't the subject of this website - I'll leave the issue of who's right - and who's wrong - to another place

The issue of shrimp farming being political is very much on-topic, and I would urge us to keep it that way. Limiting it to a debate of cheap vs. expensive completely ignores some of the economic, social and political factors and variables that influence that price. So far we've mentioned World Bank, IMF, free trade, market price and the difference between capitalist and socialist economies as possible explanations for this but there may also be others.

I think in doing that with the shrimp trade it prevents you from rationalizing this debate as follows (and I apologize in advance Robyn, because I don't wish to be seen as ganging up on you):

Well what should people eat? Perhaps we're eating more salmon in the US now than we used to because it's $4.99/pound instead of $14.99/pound - but there are worse things than eating salmon. Note that I'm not advocating overeating. It's just nice to have relatively cheap ingredients available

Agreed. It's nice, but it's unrealistic, and not at all reflective of the actual cost of the good. If only for a second let's put the shrimp debate aside and talk about bananas, also heavily commodified and subject to these same market fluctuations.

Here's an interesting graphical breakdown of the cost of bananas:

A bar graph of production costs (taking into account that, at the moment, the wholesale price of a 43 pound box of Ecuadorian bananas is $2.90 USD):

I couldn't find the same data for Shrimping but would suspect the lessons to be the same....that is, we aren't paying the full price of the thing because so many "costs" aren't accounted for. And about 5% of what we pay ends up in the hands of the producers.

Let's go back to Shrimp then, shall we?

Don't you trust the people in Vietnam to do what's best for them (assuming that's where you're talking about in terms of shrimp)? Perhaps the people in that country should be able to choose for themselves whether a major domestic industry will be farmed fish production or something more pernicious (like the sex trade in young children in certain Asia countries). Is your primary goal to protect the mangroves in Asia - or the good old boy shrimpers in the Gulf Coast of the US?

Well, if you're a supporter of free trade I'd think you'd be ok with the death of US shrimpers. It's a matter of efficiency, and shrimp farms (rather than the trawling that occurs domestically) maintain a reliable volume, with lower labour costs and higher economies of scale. Of course the protectionist antidumping laws could also kick in and help prop up an industry that's a victim of these same "market economy joys" many speak so highly of. But wouldn't that be contradictory?

This isn't a question of trust one bit. I'd love to think Vietnam could make their own decisions around secure livelihoods. But when they rely on a very fickle U.S. economy for the bulk of their revenue in that sector, then it's just not the case. Unfortunately the fickle nature does not include our demand for shrimp, or our willingness to absorb a fluctuation in price that actually DOES reflect changes in the propducing country.

So begins a long rant on the dangers of a market economy that I'll put aside, but I would invite your comments about what I've posted here.

Some of the sources for the graphs and such:

www.newint.org

www.foodfirst.org

UN FAO (Food & Ag. Association)

http://www.mises.org - Article on The Fallacies of Shrimp Protectionism

[robyn]

Robyn, the difficulty some people have with GMO products is the "law of unintended consequences." If they are in fact the difference between starvation and plenty anywhere, that's an extremely powerful argument in their favor. But if there exists the possibility that unintended terrible consequences could ensue from their introduction, that's a fairly strong argument against them. And there certainly exists enough food to feed every mouth in the world today; the problems are largely matters of politics (especially war, probably), economic inequality, and poor distribution in various places. And I say that in full awareness that there are local examples of severe soil erosion from continuous overgrazing for thousands of years, as in Ethiopia. So locally, there are places where the land has exceeded its carrying capacity, but on a worldwide basis, we have yet to near conditions of true scarcity of food. What the future will bring is another question.

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This is one of the best websites I've found about GMOs. It's the Genetically Engineered Organisms Public Issues Education Project sponsored by the Cornell Cooperative Extensive (the Aggies). Since Cornellians tend to be liberal - and Aggies tend to be conservative - I think this project calls it right down the middle . I've heard a speaker from the project before - and he was excellent. Surprised me how much people talk about GMOs from a political point of view without knowing anything about them from a scientific point of view (myself included). Robyn