“Today has not been a good day, but if you look at the whole week, it makes up for it,” explains Jordi Vidaller, one of the youngest fishermen in the Serrallo fishing port, in Tarragona. He is 29 years old and grew up among fishermen. He knows well the difficulties of moving forward in a sector that feels mistreated by all administrations, especially the Spanish and European ones. “We feel persecuted, as if we were criminals,” adds Vidaller, continuing to unload the day's catch at the dock.
When the fish arrives at the port, every fisherman's obsession is to distribute it in boxes with ice and take it as soon as possible to the brotherhood to have it ready when the fish market opens. The support of the fishing boats, with their skippers and sailors, depends on a better or worse price.
With each passing year there are fewer fishing boats in the Serrallo and in the ports of the Catalan coast. In the last decade, in the port of Serrallo 50% of the boats have been scrapped, according to data from the Tarragona Fishermen's Association. 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 trawl boats and about forty light boats, dedicated to the minor arts.
“They are fed up and tired of so much persecution and abandonment,” denounces Esteve Ortiz, president of the Tarragona brotherhood for two decades.
It is five in the afternoon and to get an idea of the main demands of the sector, just take a walk along the pier. The high price of diesel, with very critical moments in recent years; the excess of controls, inspections and sanctions by the central administration, with full jurisdiction; and the enormous amount of paperwork that the cursed bureaucracy must fill out, now digitally.
“We have the same problems as farmers,” highlights Vidaller, about Maria Ferré II. The inspections are repeated, according to the skippers, and focus on looking down to the millimeter of the size of the nets or catches. “We are fed up,” insists Ortiz. “It seems that the administrations are already doing well with the disappearance of fishermen from the Catalan coast; “All the fish will end up coming from outside.”
Another demand, as is the case with farmers, is that the same controls be required for fish arriving from non-EU countries. Labeling is another demand because they report that many fishmongers do not comply with the regulations and the final consumer has no idea where the monkfish, shrimp or hake that ends up on their table comes from.
There is also parallelism in the protests of farmers and ranchers in the rejection by part of the primary sector of what they consider to be excessive zeal on the part of environmentalists. They oppose the desire to make tougher bans in response to the overexploitation of fishing resources.
Unlike what happens with agriculture, fishermen have some products that are paid at a good price and become a lifesaver. The red shrimp is a paradigmatic example: it has recently been priced in the Tarragona fish market at more than 100 euros per kilo for the large shrimp, and 30-40 euros for the small one. Almost as if it were Christmas. The demand for restoration is fundamental. They are blessed exceptions because, in most cases, expenses have grown much more than the price of the fish at the market.
There are few young people who dare to get on a boat or study to be skippers or motorcyclists. Andreu Domènech, Jordi Vidaller's uncle, son of fishermen, started going fishing when he was 14 years old. He continues four decades later despite the difficulties. With almost no generational change, part of the void is filled by sailors from African countries.
It is a general trend, also at the Spanish level. Statistics show how the number of workers in the fishing sector is decreasing year after year. In 2022 there were just over 29,000, 20% less than ten years ago.
