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Lobster is priced at $7 a pound this year<\/h3>\nLobster is priced at $7 a pound this year<\/h3>\nThe price of spiny lobster on the global market has hit a low of $7 per pound, a slump in price not seen in many years, prompting some smaller fishermen to call the season a loss from the start, President of the Bahamas Commercial Fishers Alliance (BCFA) Adrian LaRoda said yesterday.<\/p>\n
LaRoda, who made the comments\u00a0during an appearance\u00a0on radio talk show \u201cMorning Blend Business\u201d on Guardian Radio 96.9 FM, said\u00a0almost 20 percent of the fishermen who look forward to this season are saying the low price means it will cost them too much to make the trek out to sea, with\u00a0too little to gain when they return.<\/p>\n
LaRoda\u00a0added that the larger fishermen, who make their livelihoods off of spiny lobsters season, will go out to sea as usual.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of them are not going to go out because the\u00a0price of the\u00a0product now is at an all-time low,\u201d said LaRoda.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor a lot of folks\u00a0it\u2019s probably not worth their time to go out and fish, if there are<\/p>\n
indications that we\u2019re going to be getting about $7 a pound for lobster, as opposed to last year starting around $15 to $17.<\/p>\n
\u201cMid to late season last year you were getting as much as $25\u00a0per pound.\u00a0So, you can see there\u2019s a big difference now.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to LaRoda, the COVID-19 pandemic led to fewer people eating out, which meant there was not a high demand for the product and excess supply remained on the market.<\/p>\n
He said there is also continuing competition from other countries that export spiny lobster.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn speaking with a number of the major wholesalers here, there seems to be an oversupply of product,\u201d said LaRoda.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of the markets that we service, which are primarily the European and American markets, they had an overabundance of product\u2026 lobster is a luxury item and nobody was dining out.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe foreign buyers had to hold on\u00a0to the product and it wasn\u2019t selling as it normally would, under normal economic situations. So, now we\u00a0are a couple of years out of COVID, but there still is an abundance of product. And two, we have competition from other countries. We\u2019re not the only country in the world supplying spiny lobster or rock lobster. So, those things factor into the cost of of the product for us to our wholesalers.\u201d<\/p>\n
LaRoda said\u00a0the\u00a0BCFA\u00a0expects the price of spiny lobster to increase as the season progresses, and as people begin to dine out more.<\/p>\n
According to LaRoda, the low cost of fisheries products is pervasive across the Caribbean because of an oversupply in many different types of seafood, stemming from the global COVID-19-related economic slowdown.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have countries like Guyana, they can\u2019t sell their product, and they\u2019re begging people to basically buy their product,\u201d he said. \u201cAgain, this is because of oversupply.\u201d<\/p>\n