APPENDIX III APPENDIX III 
cooperative fishing. Under such proposed agreements, U.S. 
fishermen would fish for the foreign interests and would 
receive a price per pound of fish landed. The foreign nation 
processes the fish and takes them home. 
Product development and processing 
Processing capabilities parallel harvesting capabilities. 
In Alaska plants have been designed to handle the traditional 
species such as halibut, crab, and shrimp. The labor force is 
also accustomed to working with these products. The Puget 
Sound area of Washington State has a wider capability in 
both physical plants and labor force as the trawl fisheries 
have been well established there. 
An official of a large Seattle fish processor told us 
that it is currently not economical for U.S. processors to 
process groundfish into frozen blocks because they cannot 
compete with foreign nations. However, his company believes 
that U.S. technology will allow this country to compete once 
the 200-mile limit is in effect and after the United States 
takes over more and more of the frozen market through re- 
duced competition. Some of the key factors will be the use 
of smaller trawlers by the United States, the use of less men, 
mechanical filleting, and more economical shore-based pro- 
cessing. 
Along the Aleutian chain are located plants, some aboard 
vessels, that have physical facilities and refrigeration ca- 
pacity adequate to accommodate changes to handle trawl-caught 
species. A labor force could be developed from the same 
group that is presently employed in shellfish processing. 
This is especially true if some form of mechanized processing 
is applied. Hand fillet operations would present a more 
difficult problem. 
The Alaska processing centers from Kodiak to Dutch 
Harbor and the communities of the central and southeast dis- 
tricts are in a good position to consider conversion to hand- 
ling trawl-caught species. With adequate cold storage facili- 
ties for stockpiling deliveries of frozen fish, existing 
plants could schedule groundfish processing to best fit in 
with their operations for other species. This would be a 
cost-effective way of utilizing existing facilities and plant 
areas. During the off-season for shrimp and crab, deliveries 
of frozen groundfish might be supplemented by deliveries of 
fresh fish by trawlers making short trips to nearby grounds. 
Since 1968 NMFS has been carrying out research in im- 
proved methods of utilizing species of fish generally neg- 
lected and little used by commercial food fisheries. An NMFS 
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