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COVID sinks the hopes of northern fisherfolk
For the past week, Anthon Santhanarasa, a fisherman from Munai, Point Pedro, has not ventured into the sea. Two others who used to help him on his boat fear they would have to find other jobs, perhaps masonry or daily labour, to support their families.
Like Mr. Santhanarasa there are thousands of fishermen and fishery workers in the country suffering over the closure of the Peliyagoda fish market, the country’s main fish market, following a fresh cluster of COVID-19 identified there last month.
Northern fishermen are staying away from venturing into the sea after the drastic drop in demand for fish following the emergence of the Peliyagoda fish market COVID-19 cluster. Pic by Thayalan Loha
The breakdown of the supply chain for fish exports, and viral misinformation that falsely claimed the virus can be contracted through eating fish, have caused demand for seafood to plummet.
“In our area, usually 120 fishing boats go out fishing any day but now it’s just 10 boats,” Mr. Santhanarajah said.
It costs Mr. Santhanarajah about Rs. 2,000 to fuel his vessel and cover other expenses for a single trip into the sea off Vadamarachchi sea. With an average catch of 20-25kg of mainly tuna and prawns he used to make a decent profit, enough for his family and to support the other two fishermen working on his boat.
Now, he barely manages to cover his fuel outlay despite securing the same catch, because the price of seafood has sunk so low.
“What’s the point of going to sea for fishing, then?” he asks.
With around 35,000 families engaged in fishing in the Northern Province, an overall daily catch of at least 150,000kg was usually recorded, but not any more, as fallen local and export demand has seen fishermen bring in only a third of that amount.
The last six months have been dreadful for the northern fisherfolk as their livelihood has dwindled with fresh COVID-19 clusters being identified in many parts of the country, barring the transport of fish to other districts.
The leader of the Vadamarachchi Fisheries Federation, N. Varnagulasingam, says a significant number of fishermen and fisheries workers have switched to other jobs such as masonry and daily labouring.
“Usually, 7,000kg of fish catch was produced by some 2,500 boats registered under 14 fishing unions that come under our federation. Most of the catch was transported to other districts for export in refrigerated cooler vans. But nowadays, without any marketing facilities, fishermen are forced to sell their fish catch at very cheap prices,” he said.
As an example, yellowfin tuna, which used to sell for Rs. 800 a kilo, is currently being sold at Rs. 300.
In October last year, about 4 million kg of fish catch was reported from the Jaffna district: last month, it sank to nearly half that amount, according to the Jaffna Fisheries Department.
The department’s Assistant Director, J. Sudagaran, said the drop was wholly due to coronavirus and its impact on the supply chain for exports.
Following the Peliyagoda fish market cluster, two people transporting fish products tested positive in Gurunagar, a coastal fisherfolk village a few kilometers from Jaffna town that is well known for prawns, lobsters and sea cucumber.
After a local daily reported positive cases of the virus and rumours began to spread on social media that it was possible to contract the virus through fish products, fishermen noticed that local consumption fell significantly.
“More than half of our fishermen are not going to the sea these days because of lower demand for fish in local markets. The export business is also struggling with the closure of the main fish market. We don’t know when it will return to normal,” the head of the Gurunagar Fishermen Federation, Julian Sakayarasa, said.
Annai Seafoods, a leading fish exporting agency based in Jaffna that exports fisheries products to the European Union (EU) and other countries, felt the impact of reduced catch for high-demand seafood such as red prawns, cuttlefish, lobster and sea cucumber.
A senior official of the company said he was struggling to find enough sought-after varieties of seafood to export because many fishermen were staying away from the sea.
In addition to the supply-chain difficulties caused by COVID-19, northern fishermen allege Indian fishermen are exploiting the pandemic issue to continue fishing in Lankan territorial waters using bottom trawling, a harmful practice banned by Sri Lanka.
Local fishermen claim the navy is turning a blind eye to the trespassing Indian fishermen on grounds of COVID-19 infection, thus encouraging Indian fishermen to trawl as close as nearly 3km from the Vadamarachchi coast.
The presence of the Indian trawlers is a further deterrent to local fishermen, Mr. Santhanarasa said. “Those trawlers would destroy our nets, which we have ahad to take out loans and pawn jewellery to buy. Many such incidents have happened in recent weeks but no compensation has been provided,” Mr. Santhanarasa said.