2 



Serving up 

 imports 



By Nancy Davis 



If you think the shrimp you had on 

 that Captain's Platter last night was 

 fresh from U.S. waters, think again. 



In fact, if you've had shrimp at a 

 restaurant lately, there's a good chance 

 it didn't come from anywhere near 

 here. 



About 70 percent of the shrimp we 

 eat comes from fishermen and shrimp 

 farmers from around the world. 



And so it is with most of our seafood. 



At New York's Fulton Fish Market, the 

 country's largest seafood market, much 

 of what passes through there in a day 

 is imported. 



Richard Lord, the market's informa- 

 tion officer, can't predict how much of 

 the average 400,000 pounds of seafood 

 a day comes from foreign shores. But if 

 Fulton serves as a microcosm of the 

 U.S. seafood industry, more than 70 

 percent of that fish and shellfish is im- 

 ported, he says. 



We simply can't supply our demand 

 for fish and shellfish. 



According to National Marine Fish- 

 eries Service statistics, Americans are 

 eating more seafood than ever. On 

 average, each of us ate 15.4 pounds of 

 seafood last year. And that's 4.8 percent 

 more than we ate in 1986. 



To satiate our appetites for food from 

 the sea, we must buy from other 

 nations. 



Last year the United States imported 

 a record $5.7 billion of edible fish and 

 shellfish— $897.7 million more than the 

 record value set the year before. 



"I don't think there's a country in the 

 world that produces seafood that hasn't 

 exported to the United States," Lord 

 says. 



The news comes at a time when im- 

 port has a negative ring to our ears. 

 We've come to look for that "Made in 

 the U.S.A." label on our clothes, and we 

 expect the same of our seafood. 



In October the U.S. Commerce 

 Department reported that the nation's 

 trade deficit for August was $12.2 

 billion. 



And seafood is a big part of that 

 deficit. 



In 1987 the United States imported 

 $8.7 billion in seafood products. But its 

 total exports amounted to only $1.6 

 billion. 



Those figures place fishery proaucts 

 second only to oil as the largest factor 

 in the U.S. trade deficit. 



But Lord says seafood imports are a 

 necessary evil. 



Americans are finicky about the sea- 

 food they eat, he says. Despite the 

 wide variety of seafood that could be 

 harvested from our nation's long coast- 

 line, we're partial to a few white-fleshed 

 fish such as cod, haddock and floun- 

 der. And there's just not enough of it to 

 go around. 



"Imports supplement domestic local 

 production of fish in high demand," 

 Lord says. 



Imports also help maintain our sea- 

 food supply in the winter months when 



1987 Top Ten Suppliers 

 of U.S. Seafood 





Value 



Tons 



1. Canada 



$1,241 



374.8 



2. Mexico 



$476 



79.7 



3. Ecuador 



$415 



73.6 



4. Taiwan 



$352 



103.9 



5. Japan 



$278 



75.2 



6. Korea 



$248 



87.7 



7. Thailand 



$245 



106.9 



8. Iceland 



$234 



62.3 



9. Norway 



$197 



41.9 



10. New Zealand 



$140 



20.8 



Figures are in millions of dollars and 

 thousands of tons for edible fishery products. 

 Source: National Marine Fisheries Service. 



fishing is often curtailed by the weather. 



And for consumers, imports mean we 

 have a steady supply of seafood. 



But the American fisherman may 

 have a different view. 



For him, imports mean that the guy 

 in the boat docked next to him isn't his 

 only competition. 



Instead, he may be up against a fish- 

 erman in Japan, a shrimp farmer in 

 Ecuador, a trout grower in France. 



"The seafood market is a global 

 market now," says Lord. "Our fishermen 

 are competing in the market with 

 everyone." 



But Tar Heel fishermen complain that 

 imports sometimes dictate the prices 

 they get for the catches locally. 



And they're right. 



Lord explains the economics of im- 

 ports with the help of the old laws of 

 supply and demand. 



If demand for seafood is high, but 

 supplies are low, then prices will be 

 high. 



Imports help to stabilize prices by in- 

 creasing the supply of seafood, Lord 

 says. 



"Without imports, the price would be 

 so high on some species that they'd 

 only be available for the very exclusive. 

 Therefore, imports reduce the price for 

 domestic fish," Lord says. 



For example, suppose seafood mar- 

 kets offer domestic supplies of gray 

 sole for $10 per pound. But if the mar- 

 kets can import gray sole at cheaper 

 prices, they can offer it for just $8 per 

 pound. 



Without that $8-per-pound fish, the 

 domestic $10-per-pound fish would 

 cost consumers even more. 



"Prices are market-driven," Lord says. 

 "A lot of people wouldn't be in business 

 without imports. If we only had domes- 

 tic fish to sell, the prices would be so 

 high that nobody could afford them." 



But even so, some American fisher- 

 men believe they end up competing 

 with foreign fishermen whose operating 

 costs are lower and whose govern- 

 ments sometimes subsidize their fleets. 



