BAYOU LA BATRE, Alabama – Steve Patronas said this is not a business for the young.
“If you look around at who’s running the shrimp boats around here, ain’t none of us young,” he said, while moving about the deck of his small boat the Terry Lee, which he uses to trawl for shrimp in the bay around Bayou La Batre. “We’re all of us wrinkled old men.”
Patronas, 67, said his grandfather was born in 1844 and came over from Greece to this part of Alabama during the Civil War. “I’m the youngest son of the youngest son,” he said.
“My daddy was born when his daddy was an old man and it was the same with me.”
Patronas used to work at a paper mill that is now a “bare piece of dirt because they moved it overseas where they could make the paper cheaper.” He has been shrimping on and off for decades, but what he catches barely covers his bills.
“I get less than half now of what I got back in 1978 for a pound of shrimp,” Patronas said.
Patronas is one of a dwindling number of shrimpers working the coast here, fishermen who complain that their livelihood is being squeezed by farm-raised shrimp imported from Vietnam and China.
“I do this because it’s what I love to do,” he said, looking out toward the Gulf of Mexico on a windy, grey day. “But nowadays I spend more time on the couch watching TV than I should.”
Patronas said there are younger men in the area who would like to be in his shoes.
“Young men have said to me that they would like to have my boat if they only had the chance,” he said. “I tell them that I’d give it to them but they wouldn’t be able to do anything with it.”
“Sure, they could fill it up with gas this week, but without a good catch they wouldn’t be able to fill it up next week,” he added. “There’s just no way they can make this work.”
Greg Ladnier, owner of shrimp processing company Sea Pearl Seafood Co Inc, which is just a few miles from Patronas’ boat, said that it is rare to find a shrimp boat owner nowadays who is under 50.
“The lack of younger men in the industry is a problem,” he said. “But boats cost a lot of money, insurance is expensive and shrimp prices are way down so no one will lend them the money to get started.”
“But even if banks would lend them the money, if you can’t make any money why go into business?” he added. “That’s basic economics.”
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This is why I don’t understand the objection to the buy American clause in recent legislation. I refuse to buy imported seafood, as a Mainer and former fisherman I would urge you all to check where you food comes from and buy Maine lobster for Thanksgiving. Prices are down and you can put money right into the pockets of hard working people.
- Posted by Eric HMuch of the imported seafood is not harvested sustainably. I don’t eat imported shrimp because they tear down the mangrove forests in Southeast Asia to farm them.
- Posted by Daniel Walfield[...] China are putting many of them out of business and choking off their way of life. Blog | Video Blog: No country for young men Video: Coffee houses ride recession Video: Toilet ambassador lures crowd [...]
- Posted by Full MOON Looks like a BURNT Chapati!Hunger SOS to a Billion! « Palashbiswaskl’s WeblogWhy don’t the American’s (or North American’s for that matter), get on board and begin farming them as well? Not just shrimp but other species as well.
- Posted by Scott MarshallThey don’t have the market cornered on farming fish and shrimp.
I too check my seafood and try to buy as much local or national as possible. If I knew there was a farmed fish or shrimp brand here in North America then I would support them even if it cost me more.