Fishing is a sector that employs 300,000 fishermen and indirectly generates approximately 2 million indirect jobs. Fishing activity contributes not only economically but also to the provision of quality protein necessary for the nutrition of Mexican families.
In recent days, there have been expressions of discontent over the lack of government support for fishing activity as a result of austerity measures and a palpable change in fisheries policy.
From the outset, the budget of the National Aquaculture and Fisheries Commission (CONAPESCA), the federal entity responsible for overseeing the management of the country's fishery resources, has been diminishing. It went from 2.846 million pesos in 2018 to 1.964 million in 2019 and 1.945 million in 2020. A reduction of about 70% of the budget since the beginning of the six-year term.
The main instrument of CONAPESCA's fisheries policy are subsidies to which around 70% of the budget is allocated. The proportion has been preserved compared to previous years, however, there are substantial changes in its distribution. In addition to the first cut in 2 types of subsidies observed in 2019, there was the elimination of 9 more subsidies in 2020, including those for fuels. Today, only the Bienesca program remains, which consists of direct transfers to fishermen in the amount of $7,200 pesos per year. Not having fuel support is a serious blow for fishermen and companies that relied on it to make their operations profitable. In terms of fisheries that are already at their limit or overexploited, it is increasingly difficult to find the resource and this brings higher costs. Fuel support helped to address these costs. However, it has been identified that it is also a factor that can further encourage overexploitation of the resource [1], and in the past there was a high concentration of this support on a few beneficiaries [2].
A second change was to give priority to fishermen and aquaculturists located in rural areas or in municipalities included in the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, or those who belong to ethnic groups or indigenous peoples. This is part of a general policy that proposes the use of subsidies to promote the productive development of vulnerable fishing communities.
A third change is the profile of the beneficiaries. According to figures from our Pescando Datos platform [3], beneficiaries went from an average of 34,700 beneficiaries per year to more than 51,000 beneficiaries in 2019, including individuals, legal entities and institutions. This implies that there was less focus on the 10 types of support that were given that year. It is expected that in 2020 this change will be accentuated as CONAPESCA announced that it expects to
benefit a total of 193,000 fishermen with Bienesca.
In terms of serving vulnerable communities, Pescando Datos points out that progress is indeed being made in a change of policy. We found that in 2019 there was an increase in support for fishermen from coastal boats, which went from representing a little more than 29% of the total budget in 2018 to 41% of the total in 2019. Women's participation also increased from 1.3% of the total number of beneficiaries in 2018 to 19.4% in 2019, around 6,700 more women benefited.
The change is also recorded by region, in the South Pacific (Jalisco, Michoacán, Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas) it went from 8.8% of the total support budget to 15.1% in 2019 and in the dispersion of beneficiaries who were located in more localities, 23% more than in 2018, and in localities with high levels of marginalization, which translated into an increase of 0.8% to 1.5%.
Transparency in the list of beneficiaries and in the Bienesca selection criteria are still a pending task. In the light of the results of these first two years, it is necessary to review these criteria to ensure that fishermen belonging to vulnerable groups are effectively served. This is especially necessary because there have been claims for the inclusion of people who are not fishermen. A third point is to review the current reengineering of subsidies to identify how else the fishing sector is supported, both to face the serious economic crisis and to meet the requirements to improve its activity and maintain fisheries in the following years.
Appointments:
[1] WWF-World Fund for Nature and Nature (2013). Reform in fishing subsidies: Memoirs of the dialogues on public fishing spending in Mexico. Briefing Paper, November.
[2] Fishing Data, Fishing Subsidies. Available at https://pescandodatos.org/nota-tecnica2
[3] Fishing Data, Fishing Subsidies. Available at https://pescandodatos.org/subsidios-pesqueros #
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