“How the virus woke up the Chinese giant for the next global war on sustainable tuna”
Foto: SeafoodSource
The coronavirus has left no corner of the world untouched. This pandemic will cause many thousands, if not millions of death casualties, many more people infected, societies in disarray and economies in recession. It is too early yet to know the full impact of the fallout to come, but this crisis will be of a historical proportions. In a hundred years, the horrors of the coronacrisis will be still in our collective memory, next to the black plague and the Spanish flu, as a turning point in human history.
The coronavirus will be a geostrategical gamechanger in tuna fisheries
It will be a gamechanger for sustainable tuna, too. Maybe tuna is not the first issue that pops up into your mind amidst the horrors of corona, let alone the priority of sustainability of tuna fisheries. But it should. Because if this coronacrisis proves anything, it is the urgency to organize our global tuna fisheries in a sustainable way. The more so because the coronavirus not only was first to strike in China, but also made the leaders of this country realize it needs to be big player in tuna fisheries. And big in China means really big. Geostrategic big. Big in the sense of getting good tuna management a priority place on the global political agenda as soon as possible.
Short Term effects
As always in times of war and crisis, tuna is an important staple food that can be shelved and serve people as a healthy, storable protein. No wonder sales spiked in Europe and the US as tuna was stockpiled by panicking consumers. Like a cloud of locusts, shoppers loaded their cars with canned tuna, leaving empty shelves at the supermarkets.
This virus became a war-like challenge to the tuna supply chain. The largest supplier for the US market, Starkist, is speeding up production at its processing plant on American Samao. In Europe Italy and Spain are hit hardest in the European Union by the coronavirus so far. And as it happens these two countries are also home to the largest canning industry for the European market. The industry assured consumers that no alarm bells are ringing for canned tuna in Europe. Juan Manuel Vieites, president of the Spanish processor association Anfaco Cecopesca and an unnamed Italian spokesman are quoted by the Atuna.com news-site that companies are able to satisfy the increased demand.
The virus will put the tuna supply chain to the test
So far, the measures in both countries to fight the virus, have not resulted in closures. With the plants still producing, workers have to keep a distance of 1 to 1.5 meter, wash their hands regularly and have their temperature checked. It might well be that the governments are considering a closure, but for the time being the importance of tuna as an indispensable staple food seems to prevail.
Transport problems
Upstream in the supply chain, with the raw material for the canneries the situation is more worrying. Due to travel restrictions and the implosion of air travel, the first obstacles are experienced with seiner crews and observers for the tuna fishing boats in the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. The Indian Ocean Tuna Commission is pulling back its observers from the seiners. The Papua New Guinea region of Madang, important hub for the landing of tuna, is closing for tuna vessels. More ports will probably follow.
Even more worrying is the situation on the tuna transport from South-East Asia that has a cascade effect on the supply of precooked tuna loins and whole tunas. Due to the virus there is a massive congestion of transport in the Chinese ports and a critical shortage of refrigerated containers used for tuna. This causes an accumulation of problems offloading the catch from the reefers, the boats that collect tuna. The reefers are stuck in the ports and cannot go out to get new catch.
So, the short-term situation of canned tuna as a global stockpile food seems gloomy enough.
The bigger issue is the urgency of sustainable management policies of the RFMOs
But things get really scary in the long run, with more fundamental issues at stake. Since tuna has proved to be once more a geostrategic food in times of crisis, the importance of a sustainable management of its populations in the oceans only increases. Not only the ecological impact of tuna fisheries has to be under sustainable governance, it is also a matter to guarantee its availability as a staple food for future generations. This means there is a bigger need to make sustainable management policies work. It puts more pressure on the Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs), the United Nations of Tuna, to deliver strong global policies on harvest strategies, the fight against illegal fisheries, FAD management, transshipment and monitoring the fleets.
Wake-up call
This is a worldwide wake up call for the national governments to put the tuna RFMOs that manage the five big oceans, as global priority on the political agenda. The poor performance of these management organisations should finally come to an end. It means that the overwhelming influence in the RFMOs of the large distant-water fleets should be much more balanced with the interests of the other stakeholders in the chain, like trade, processing, retail and most of all: consumers who have an increasing understanding of the importance of a sustainable fishery.
When the Chinese leaders declare tuna fisheries a priority we have to prepare for unprecendented investments and exploding capacity
There is not much time left. In a surprising move earlier this month, the Chinese leadership, still recovering of the first strike of the coronavirus, called to explore further the potential of a greater domestic market of tuna products as a safe food supply. According to the Chinese ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs China is looking into tuna as a wild fish that is not susceptible for the development of viruses like corona. When the Chinese leaders declare tuna fisheries and consumption a priority, it means that from now on we can see unprecedented, massive investments in tuna fleets, port facilities, processing factories and tuna brands to deliver cans for the Chinese consumer. The fleet capacity will explode globally. We will have to be prepared for it: corona woke up a giant that will not hesitate to act in the next tuna war on sustainability.