The shortage was caused by restrictions on access to the sea. At the time of the military special operation, sections of the Black and Azov Seas are closed for fishing, seiners and trawlers cannot carry out production in the same volume. The fishermen are promised state support so they can stay afloat and keep their staff. According to preliminary estimates, the state will send 200 million rubles to fishing companies in Sevastopol, the Republic of Crimea and new regions of Russia.
“In summer, mainly sprat, or Black Sea sprat, is caught,” Valery Sivochub, head of the Sevastopol and Crimean Association of Fishermen, told RG. – Now it is in great demand in canneries: they have increased the production of tomato sprat, an economical and demanded product.
According to Sivochub, the trawlers go to sea, but with restrictions. Every time you need to apply for permission to leave the Sevastopol port and return, coordinate the production area.
– We don’t stop, we work. The situation now is much better than it was in the spring, she says. Most of the time they give permission. We understand that these restrictions are related to our security.
Sevastopol fishermen lost about three thousand tons of catch during the spring-summer period due to downtime, says the head of the association, this is about a quarter of the planned production. The subsidy will help them survive a difficult period without laying off employees. In 2022, the government of the Russian Federation has already provided similar support to the fishermen of the Azov Sea for a total of 50 million rubles. Conditions this year will be similar.
– We must present our expenses and losses, and the city government will decide on the allocation of subsidies and their amount, – explained Sivochub. – One of the conditions is the preservation of 90 percent of the workforce. This is the correct clause, it obliges shipowners and employers not to lay off employees.
In Sevastopol, about 600 people are employed in boat fishing. At the same time, a trawler with a crew of 50 provides an annual program for an average cannery, where hundreds of employees work. There are also contractors that supply the ships. If the fishermen go bankrupt and lose their boats, thousands of people will be out of work.
Despite restrictions on access to the sea, Sevastopol companies managed to catch more than 9,000 tons of fish in the first half of 2023, said Natalya Skoryukova, head of the Sevastopol Department of Agriculture.
“The fishing industry in our region was recognized as affected in 2023,” says Skoryukova. – The issue of state support has been resolved with the Federal Agency for Fisheries and the Ministry of Agriculture of Russia. We hope that this year, for the first time, the city’s fishermen will receive a subsidy from the federal budget.
Fishing in Sevastopol is carried out by seven legal entities and more than 20 individual entrepreneurs. In the first half of the year, the local government has already allocated 33 million rubles to the industry as a subsidy. The money is intended to offset the cost of modernizing the ships and purchasing new equipment.
Subsidies from the city budget have increased compared to previous years: in 2022, state support amounted to 29 million rubles, in 2021 – 20 million. However, fish merchants complained that there was not enough money for everyone, only seven large enterprises are modernizing, spending 60-100 million rubles a year. And if the trawlers are not repaired and the equipment is not changed, they will quickly fail.
Last summer, the Sevastopol authorities requested additional payments for Black Sea fishermen from the federal budget due to the fact that the Russian Defense Ministry, after the start of a special operation, closed the northwestern part of the Black Sea for navigation. While the issue was being resolved, the city government allocated 20 million rubles from the reserve fund to legal entities engaged in industrial fishing and fish processing. They were reimbursed for part of the costs of harvesting mullet, tyulka, sprat, anchovy and horse mackerel in 2022.
