The fourth problem in fishery development is the distribution and merchandising of the product in such a manner that demand is sufficiently constant to keep costs in the whole system low, and in ways that the cost of distribution does not add so much to cost of end product that producer and processor cannot get enough profit to keep going, or that competitive products will not drive the fish product out of the market, and so that the consumer will repeat his consumption. The fifth problem is that the resource, for the most part, is common property of all nations until reduced to possession. No person can own such a resource and get the benefits of animal husbandry for himself. Thus management of the resource and its use is a public function for the operation of which there is no satisfactory governmental machinery on the international level, and ordinarily, highly imperfect machinery on the national, state, and local level. This brings all sorts of complicated and vigorous multiple-user problems at all of these levels which are, on a state, national and international level, presently the greatest barriers to ocean fishery development. In a word, the fishing industry must first fight the ocean for the fish, then fight the rest of humanity steadily to maintain access to the fish, then fight the rest of humanity for continued access to the market; and, in the end, produce a product in a form acceptable to consumers, at a cost they can and will pay, while leaving profit margins at fishing, processing and merchandising levels adequate to keep people employed therein and to attract adequate capital to these purposes. The first and fifth of these problems are reasonably unique to producing food from the ocean. The second problem also has many ocean-induced aspects, but can draw more on ideas, equipment, and developments in related industry. The third sort of problem has even less differentiating it from other food-processing problems and can draw much from related industrial practices. The fourth sort of problem--- distribution and merchandising-- is not markedly different than the same practices in other consumer-oriented industries, and much the same can be said for general management of the enterprise. A difficulty is that all five sorts of problems must be moved along at about the same rate or nothing develops, and the first and fifth sorts of problems are so different from the ordinary land-induced problems of other industries that a very strong seaflavor must pervade the whole enterprise or it does not grow and prosper. It is in these areas that the educational apparatus in the United States is most deficient for the sea-people, and where they need assistance from it most. APPROACHING THE FISH Fish are affected in their abundance by changes in the environment (which may, and often do, provide changes by an order of magnitude in the incoming year class), and by fishing pressure (the overfishing problem). Disentangling the effects of these two factors on observed changes in abundance calls for the most precise, abstruse, complicated and extensive science. The processes of changes in the environment must be elucidated. The processes of effects of these changes on the biological cycles of the particular resource must be elucidated. The effect of differential fishing pressures on resource forms competitive with the one being studied is only beginning to be understood and studied. All along the line one must be able first to measure that which seems, at first, incapable of measurement. Physical, chemical and biological oceanography of the most sophisticated nature must be done before these problems can even be approached. When this sort of information is in hand the volume of the resource in the opaque ocean must be measured and the effect of density-independent and density-dependent factors on the abundance of the particular resource must be worked out. Then the fishing effort itself must be calibrated and the sophisticated mathematical models, required for relating different fishing pressures to different measured effects on population abundance, must be understood. As often as not the fishery is working at the same time, or seriatim, or in an auxiliary manner, on a number of different fish populations each of which is reacting in a distinct and different manner to both environmental and fishing effort changes. When one has the abundance problem in hand one logically would move to the study of the availability problem, which is made up both of abundance of the population and its aggregation in a manner and place which makes it readily and cheaply caught. Events ordinarily do not permit such logical scientific progression. One must almost always work simultaneously on both the abundance and availability problems. In some great fisheries (North Atlantic cod, Peruvian anchovy, tuna everywhere) quite subtle changes in the environment can throw the aggregation of fish some hundreds of miles from where they are expected, or keep them a few feet below the surface where they are undetectable, or promote scattering and prevent aggregation into commercially practical catching bunches. The objective of all of this is prediction. It becomes more clear as we go forward that our ability to predict environmental changes is a key factor, that they cannot be predicted satisfactorily on the basis of measurements in the area of the fishery, that they are often (if not normally) subject to changes going on over the horizon where we are not watching or measuring, and that they are arising from processes we do not yet understand very well even if we could measure them synoptically. This is a reason why fishery people become more continuously interested in the world ocean as a unit and the study of air-sea interaction processes on a global scale. Involved also are the biological consequences of these gross, and minute, environmental changes, and I could spend the rest of the day illustrating our ignorance of various facets of this aspect of the matter. The situation is not at all hopeless or impossible. Quite considerable progress is being made in prediction of this nature in several important fisheries. Often this is still empirical but in some cases even the processes are becoming dimly understood. One must always keep in mind that the fisherman, and the industry associated with him, are making predictions of these sorts on a daily, less than daily, or more than daily basis, on the basis of the best information and understanding available. On a global basis the livelihood of millions of people and the employment of hundreds of millions in capital are risked daily on these fishermen and trade predictions, guesses and decisions. This goes on whether or not there is any science and must do so. If science can improve the predictive ability of fishermen by only one or two per cent, or extend his predictions by one or two days in a direction better than random, the beneficial economic and social consequences on a national and international basis are quite enormous. THE MULTIPLE-USER PROBLEM Since the resources used by the industry are, for the most part, the common-property of everyone, the normal instinct of the individual, the group, the nation, or the region is to keep everybody except itself from fishing on the resources. What the individual entity wants is ownership so that it can manage and husband the whole resource and fishery and reap all of the benefits therefrom. This the other individual entities will not permit. Arising out of the same common-property nature of the resources is the attitude of public administrators to their task. If there is any question as to overfishing, the best thing to do (it is often felt by them) is to slow down or stop the fishery until science can ascertain the facts. In consequence laws and regulations of great variety impede the development of the ocean fisheries in all directions, and in many (or even most) instances these laws and regulations, and the local, national, and international interactions that arise from them, have little relation to natural happenings in the ocean or conservation need. What has grown over the past fifty years is the realization that every living resource of the ocean can be subjected to a fishing pressure that will produce, on the average over the years, a maximum sustainable catch, and that this can be pretty well estimated by independent scientific research capable of independent checking for credibility. Accordingly, the nations in the Law of the Sea Conference at Geneva, in 1958, adopted this as the standard to which they all could, and would, rally. This has disconcerted economists some because the point of maximum economic yield is often (or normally) somewhat short of the point of maximum sustainable yield. But the point of maximum economic yield is importantly affected by socially induced factors as well as factors arising solely out of nature. Different societies created different socially induced factors into the equation. Groups of men are not yet willing to adopt the socially induced factors of other groups of men as their own rules. Thus, the nations could not agree on what was a proper standard for maximum economic yield, but they did agree instead on the standard of nature -- the maximum sustainable yield. This is derived from nature, which each group could measure and evaluate independently. For our purpose, here, it is only necessary to state that the determination of the point (or area) of maximum sustainable yield is a matter for scientists, and that fishermen, industry people, administrators and statesmen are not able to give much useful imput to these determinations. Neither the nations, or groups within the nations, have yet developed any agreed standards or criteria as to which group or nation will derive the benefit from the conservation contemplated by the adoption of such a standard of maximum sustainable yield; but now that the standard has been created and adopted it does provide the basis for reaching agreements on how to split up the swag-and this is the proper point upon which fishermen, industry people, administrators and statesmen can effectively bring their talents and aspirations to bear. They have not yet shown much inclination to do so in a satisfactory manner at any level, and in consequence many vigorous artificial barriers to fishery development exist at all levels. AQUACULTURE A great deal is heard these days about the raising of resources in the ocean, with aquaculture being equated in these considerations with animal husbandry or land or even agriculture. Most of this, at this point in history, is nonsense and should not yet be getting the public attention being given to it. The reasons for this are several. One is that we do not yet understand well enough the natural processes of food production in the ocean to be able to intervene in them beneficially in a very meaningful manner. Secondly, mankind never practiced animal husbandry where wild game was always abundant, because there was no need for it. The common pasture of the world ocean is naturally producing about 2 billion tons per year of food in size and form usable by man. At present man is using about 50 million tons of this per year, and the rest is dying and going back into the web of life unused by man. Certainly this wild stock will require being cut into much more deeply before any major activity in artifically raising more is warranted. The third reason, however, is the most pertinent at this stage of history. No man can afford the expense of raising fine stock if he cannot keep it out of the common pasture where it can be harvested by his neighbors who have not shared the expense of the animal husbandry. Most major fishery resources not only range out into the common pasture of the high sea, but they cannot be practically confined, reared, grown to commercial size, and harvested inside a 3 mile limit or a 12 mile limit. Until the legal and diplomatic problems associated with the common-property nature of these great resources come better into hand no large scale aquaculture in the high seas will be warranted. There is no question but what Donaldson at the University of Washington has beneficially manipulated the genetic capabilities of chinook salmon, for instance, in such a manner that animal husbandry practices would yield great return, if the legal basis for reaping the reward of the animal husbandry were available. There is good reason to believe that this could be repeated on one aquatic resource after the other. But the legal basis for reaping the reward does not exist on the state, national or international level, and the chinook salmon, because of nature, must range through all three of these levels of management before it reaches harvestable size. An exception to all of this lies in the aquatic resources of the estuarine and near-coastal area, and particularly to the attached forms--the kels and shellfishes. Oysters, mussels, and clams in particular are susceptible of economic farming and it looks as if this applies also to some marine algaes. While more scientific work is needed at many points the main barriers to present farming of these things are legal and tenure problems, economic costing of methodology, and marketing problems. Pollution problems are also of major concern but these now look to be tractable. CATCHING THE FISH If there are fish in abundance where you want them and no legal barriers to getting them, there still remains the problem of catching them and getting them to port at a cost low enough to enter the market and leave adequate margin for profit on labor and capital used. Should it be a 50 ton boat or a 1,000 ton vessel? Should it have radar, sonar, fish finder, and be supported by air surveillance, or simply use eyeball methods of locating fish? Should it bring in the fish fresh, iced, frozen, or otherwise stabilized? Should it use wood, steel or aluminum in hull and superstructure? In what sort of sea-state will it be required to work? What ratios between speed, length, fuel consumption, carrying capacity, crew comfort, etc., are required to maximize profit? Shall it be a purse seiner, long-liner, trawler, gill-netter, or what (or maybe a combination vessel)? What is the rhythm of sea-state in the area to be fished so that trips can be arranged to take advantage of this? THE PRESERVATION OF THE FISH On an average a fish is 80% water which is no more nutritious or tasty than ordinary tap-water. It costs as much to freeze and transport the water as it does the nutritious parts of the fish. Fish range in oil content from 1% to 20%. Most of the fats are polyunsaturated (unlike most land-animal fats). Upon death they take up oxygen and become rancid. This presents one or more of three sorts of problems. In some fishes (for instance the salmons) the delicate tastes which yield the high prices are carried in the oils. If the oils become rancid the value of the fish depreciates rapidly. Rancid oil in all other fish generally smells badly and makes for an unacceptable product. Thirdly, rancid oils can be unwholesome from the standpoint of human or other animal feeding. Accordingly, the polyunsaturated lipids of fish must be stabilized or extracted rather quickly after death or the product declines in value sharply and quickly. Fish are about 18% to 24% protein, and this is the principal nutritional element in fish. The proteins have a balance of amino-acids well suited for human or animal diets and the trace mineral content as well as certain vitamins (particularly of the B-complex) are additional plus factors nutritionally. The enzymes of fish are active and keep right on acting after death; accordingly, they must be stabilized quickly if sea quality is to be retained. From a nutritional standpoint there is not much difference between an anchovy and a bluefin tuna. The amino-acid balance of the proteins is about the same in all fishes and it is possible to take out most of the water and oil, grind the whole business together, and come out with a stable product 85% protein that stores, transports, and handles cheaply and is not much different nutritionally whether you start with anchovy or bluefin. The economics of what you want to do with the fish, however, is likely to be controlling. If you are landing the anchovy in Pery for fishmeal production for chicken feeding you can get nearly ten dollars per ton for your catch. If you are anding your anchovy in northern Spain to be marinated and canned for the Italian trade you can get something more than $100 per ton for your catch. If you are landing your bluefin catch in San Diego for canning for the American trade you can get about $240 per ton for it. If you are landing it in Tokyo, just before the year-end holidays and it is very fresh, you can expect better than $2,000 per ton for it in the round as it leaves your vessel, to be eaten raw in the sashimi trade. This barely indicates some of the great variety of problems susceptible to improved technology which exist in the field of harvesting food from the sea. EDUCATIONAL REQUIREMENTS FOR AUGMENTING THE USE OF FOOD If you have followed me this far you will have seen that there are broad opportunities for increasing the use of the living resources of the sea by the United States and man generally, that there are some good reasons for doing this, and that there are some difficult scientific, engineering, legal, diplomatic, technological, managerial, economic and social problems in the way of doing this. In Japan there has been developed during this century a rather complete educational system within the general educational system for the training of people to go into the fishing business at almost all levels. There are grade schools, and high schools that emphasize the sorts of training required for this work. Beyond this level there are fishery colleges which train people for rather more advanced positions in the fish business (vessel captains, administrators, managers, etc.). Finally, there are graduate schools which train fishery oceanographers, fishery biologist, etc., for the scientific aspects of fishery work. These levels of education are integrated into a whole. Some such complete system has been developed in Russia also over the past fifteen years, and is more or less being developed in Poland as well. I do not necessarily suggest that what is good educationally in Japan, Russia and Poland is either necessary, or necessarily the best, for the United States. I do point out, however, that Japan (next to Peru) is the greatest fishing country in the world and that her fishermen fish the whole world ocean using sophisticated methods of catching, preservation and marketing that we do not employ. At every level of this operation from fishing to management and government agency are found the graduates of this fishery educational system. Russia follows behind Japan in world fish production and her production has grown, diversified, and is growing, and diversifying, even more rapidly. Also at all levels of the Russian operation are found graduates of the Russian fishery education system. Poland's fish production is much smaller, but has increased by a factor of ten in the past eighteen years and is moving up rapidly now. In the give very little attention to fishery education outside our gen United States we for thirty years. I think there is a relationship between these things. eral education system, and the domestic fish production here has stayed level Where we are failing worst at the present time, in my view, is in translating back from the scientist, who has the information that could be used, to the |