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The Union’s Chairman, Mikhail Ryabchevsky, has told about the current situation in local collective farms to a correspondent of “Rybnaya Stolitsa”.
- Has the number of fishing collective farms decreased over the last decade?
- No. In fact, their number has grown to 13 from the previous 7. But the number itself doesn’t mean anything. Even a group of 5 persons can set up “a collective farm”. I think that only the enterprises based in fishing villages have the right to be called this way. Among these are Murman in Teriberka, Udarnik in Minkino, other collective farms situated in small fishing towns across the region.
Vitte and Terfishing collective farms have been recently admitted to the Union. The Umba-based Volna has also applied to enter.
- What attracts the fishing farms in the Union? Just quotas?
- Not exactly so. Quotas are allocated now without regard to any membership. Vessels of the same type are given the same quota shares, no matter if they belong to the Trawl Fleet, to the Union of Fish Industrialists, or any other association. The reason for joining our Union is that people are tired of fighting by themselves, and they seek for support. Besides, we have a well-established system that has been proved by many years of work. We can resolve the fishermen’s problems in cooperation with Moscow authorities: the Russian Association of Collective Farms which makes part of the Ministry of Agriculture, the State Fisheries Committee.
- And how often do you actually have to go to Moscow?
- You see, previously we had the Sevryba association that dealt with settling practically every issue within the region as well as on the state level. Today the situation is different: our fishermen have to take care of everything by themselves. I try to help them with their problems, that’s why it is necessary to attend the special meetings in Moscow, where I can talk to ministerial officials directly and come to an agreement on site.
At one of the recent meetings of the State Fisheries Committee’s Board, it was acknowledged that the system of collective farms is a most stable, most promising one. Indeed, only the collective farms (I mean the local ones) have proved able to survive under the perestroika and other violent reforms. More importantly, we have been able to keep our vessels, our specialists and villages. It was a hard time, but we didn’t steal anything, nor did we destroy what we had.
- In the Soviet years, the Barents sea used to be the “property” of collective farm fleet, while larger deep-sea vessels fished in the far grounds.
And the problem of resources did not exist…
- Right, the governmental policy allowed only the small and medium-sized vessels to fish in the Barents sea. But with the USSR breaking up, the sweeping changes came to raze everything to the ground: all collective farms were supposed to close up. Fortunately, some regional chiefs were clever enough to keep the system working. A funny fact, by the way: in the statistical data, fishing collective farms were reported to supply meat and other agricultural products to the market, as there was no special index for fish.
- You said you had managed to keep the vessels. But aren’t they too old now?
- Well, we have made some acquisitions to replace the oldest trawlers with more up-to-date ones. It is a serious drawback that today there is no state structure to carry out a common policy of the fishing fleet modernization.
- Are your vessels working solely in the Barents sea?
- Not only there, in fact. A few of the UFCF’s vessels are currently fishing squid near Argentina. Even the middle-sized trawlers are working there successfully.
- Difficult to imagine those “little ones” crossing the ocean! And what about the quotas for catching cod? Are the Union’s vessels given cod quotas on the same terms with others?
- Exactly. And the situation looks pretty unfair: a collective farm that has to provide a whole village with food, electricity, and so on, is treated equally with a small Moscow-based company having a staff of 3 or 5 persons, when allocating quotas.
- And how do the villages live today?
- Now they are completely dependent on fish. Under the Soviet Union, their economy was versatile: apart from fishing, there were cattle breeding, fur making and other branches developed. Not to mention the processing factories or a ship-repair facility that the c/f Udarnik possessed, for instance.
- Why have you decided to keep the old name-“collective farm”?
- And why not so? It means that property is managed collectively. I don’t think that it is the name that matters. For many people this word seems to bear a kind of a negative implication, which I find strange enough.
- It is known that previously collective farms enjoyed certain benefits from the state. Is it still so?
- Well, I have one good news to tell in this connection. A new federal law, dealing with free quotas to be allocated to fishing collective farms, is to take effect soon. Under the new law, free quotas might be obtained by a fishing farm that plays a key role in the economy of its village and is older than 40 years. (It applies fully to our farms, with most of them established over 40 or even 65 years ago). Another requirement concerns the volume of agricultural (fishing) production and fish catches that must be over 70 per cent of the farm’s total output. That will be the only chance for our fishermen to get quotas free.
But on the whole, we have no preferences from the state. The only benefit that has lately been given to our farms is the income tax and road duties exemption.
In the USSR, collective farms were in some way independent of the state: they paid no taxes, but didn’t receive any help from the state either. It was not easy, but we managed to survive.
In the Far East the system of collective farms collapsed, because they were totally dependent on state structures. Naturally, when the state processing enterprises disappeared, the farms there died as well. But we went another way: we had our own refrigerating facilities and other things necessary to get through all that. That helped us stay afloat.
- How big is the Union’s staff?
- When I came to work here twelve years ago, there were 82 people employed. Now it’s only 17 persons left, although the number of farms or vessels has not reduced. We have reached a new level of the personnel efficiency, when one employee can successfully perform many functions.
- So, is the living easy for you now?
- Far from that! We used to complain of an excessive red-tape burden that obliged us to submit a huge pile of reports of all kinds. Now the situation seems even worse, with the number of requested papers grown at least twice. It is getting harder all the time. But we are not going to give up. We will now build our future with our own hands.
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