CROATIA
Fishermen’s Cooperative Adria
Fighting to establish a fish auction Almost all the approximately 150 pelagic fishing vessels and many of the demersal fishing trawlers in Croatia are now members of cooperatives. In 2012 18 cooperatives with a total membership of 443 were officially recognised by the Ministry of Agriculture. The cooperatives can be exclusively for pelagic fishers or for demersal trawlers, but in many cases a cooperative will have a mixed membership. The cooperative Adria in Tribunj for example has both pelagic purse seiners and demersal trawlers among its members.
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ike most cooperatives Adria was established to try and improve the lot of the fishermen, to help them with funding for modern equipment on board their vessels, to improve the quality of the catch, to enable them to get better prices, and above all to improve their strength and negotiating power on the market. Taken together these measures will contribute to a more sustainable fisheries sector both environmentally and economically.
Catch includes demersal species and small pelagics Adria was founded in 2007 in Tribunj, a coastal town in the Sibenik-knin County that has good road links to other parts of the country. Currently 20 owners of 28 fishing vessels are members of the cooperative. These vessels include twenty bottom trawlers targeting demersal species, five purse seiners catching pelagic fish, and three vessels that use different gears to target a variety of species. All the vessels are between nine and 24 m with half larger than 15 m. About 3,000 tonnes (2013) of fish pass through the port in Tribunj which is managed by the cooperative. Roughly half is from vessels that are members of Adria, while the remainder
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Eurofish Magazine 5 / 2014
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Robert Popov, Manager, Fisherman’s Cooperative Adria
comes from vessels that use the facilities that the cooperative has established against the payment of a fee. These vessels, about 20 in number, have formal agreements with the cooperative but are not members. Adria manages the fishing port at Tribunj, an area of 40,313 square m of which 8,857 is land, and 31,456 is sea area, which has been completely modernised with berths for the fishing vessels where they can unload the fish. The pier is 300 m long and the depth varies from 2 to 7 m allowing 15 to 20 vessels to discharge their cargos simultaneously. The cooperative
Ante Sladoljev, Fisherman’s Cooperative Adria
has also created new facilities for the sale, processing, storage, and distribution of fish. These services as well as others are available to the members of the cooperative for a nominal price, fishing vessels with which the cooperative has an agreement pay a higher price for the same services, while other vessels pay an even higher fee. The list of services is extensive and range from entering the port, and berthing, to servicing the vessel, and providing ice, electricity, or fuel. Membership of the cooperative is growing, from 7 members in 2007 to 20 today, and vessel owners that are interested can still become members,
following a six-month probation period, and avail of all the advantages of membership. The fee for membership is calculated based on the size of the vessel. These benefits are set to increase if the cooperative’s plans to develop a wholesale market come to fruition.
Vested interests resist auction plans Today, says Robert Popov, the manager of Adria, about 70 of the catch is exported, however it is not exported directly by us, but goes through local traders who sell to traders abroad who in turn
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