If Africans and Scots can, Alaska fishermen can

Alaska fishermen are by no means the only ones who can't get a fair price for their product. Take a look at this article about Botswana cattle producers. They are doing what the regional seafood development associations will probably find out they need to do a few years down the road. That is, get all the associations together for some effective leverage. This is not a bad model at all. In fact it has all the markings of real intelligent planning. And since they are just doing it now, it would be a good model for Alaska fishermen to look at.

The Scottish are also in the misdst of major seafood industry restructuring. They are going to be looking at optimizing the efficiency from net to table. The whole supply chain. The problem I see with what they are doing is that there are so many people invloved that it may become cumbersome.

Alaska's restructuring efforts of the last few years are similar. You get everyone involved and then have the state government people write up all the ideas and then what do you have? A whole lot of ideas written up. Well, you have to make it look like a massive effort to give the impression that something is going to come of it.

When the dust all settles, the companies and fishermen that are in the best position are usually still in the best position. Mostly, they get involved to improve their position and the little guys that don't get involved, lose some position. So, good luck to you students of restructuring, revitalization, rationalization, re-rationalization, remodeling, recusitation, re-energizing or whatever is in vogue.

The Southwest Municipal Conference and Kodiak are looking at the supply chain themselves in some sort of Task Force. Too bad it wasn't a little broader in scope. But they may have some results worth reading in their effort to get more fish out fresh. They are out in left field and need to figure this out. I've tried flying fish up from out Westward and it's a bugger, I guarantee.