Brunswick, GA |
Ask any visitor to the Georgia coast what they’re hoping to eat, and seafood will likely to be the overwhelming favorite, specifically freshly caught shrimp. However, the industry has really struggled over the past year, due mainly to overseas competition.
“It’s no secret that shrimp’s the number one type of seafood we eat here in this country and that there’s a large dependence on foreign shrimp, but because of the pandemic, and because of market shifts, you had a lot of foreign shrimp flood the market this past year that weren’t able to in previous years get here. That just overabundance of imported shrimp coming into the market really made it challenging for our domestic industry to really move their products,” says Bryan Fluech, Associate Marine Director at UGA.
For that reason, shrimpers have either had to find creative ways to market their products like direct-to-consumer sales and prepackaged meals or get out of the business completely.
“When you take into all the overhead costs of maintaining your boat, trying to find a crew, being able to get a price that can compete with what you see on the foreign level, it really makes it challenging economically for a lot of the industry members to stay in it,” says Fluech.
That’s why buying local whenever possible is so important despite the higher price tag, as you’re not just paying for quality and freshness, but also supporting the Georgia economy.
“When consumers go to the grocery store and they see why is this shrimp so much more expensive than one that might come from another country, you got to realize what goes into that from the minute it’s harvested, to handle, process and distributed. I think that’s a key message. Every time you buy that local shrimp or that domestic product, you’re helping to provide some economic stability in a very challenging environment right now for our industry,” says Fluech.
It’s been that way for the past decade, which is why the future of Georgia’s shrimping industry is in such doubt, with the next generation looking for other options.
“Traditionally, shrimping and a lot of our commercial fishermen, these are typically traditions that were passed on through generations. A lot of that younger generation are saying, ‘we’re not going to get into it.’ So, there is that concern of where is our industry going to come from. Because it’s not just the, the fishermen themselves, but do we have the processors? Do we have the distributors? I mean, when we look at our food systems, whether we’re talking about a land based ag product or a fish, we have to have an intact food system and that is something that has made it more and more challenging for people to stay in,” says Fluech.
It’s a harsh reality that could have a major impact on a number of communities along Coastal Georgia.
“This is part of that identity of the Georgia coast when they come here. Being able to see these shrimp boats or somebody harvesting crabs, that’s something not only from a cultural aspect, but from an economic aspect that a lot of our smaller coastal communities vitally depend on and it has ramifications through tourism and other sectors along our coast,” says Fluech.
By: Damon Jones