Professional inland fishing is no easy ride
Some ten years ago there were 500-600 professional fishermen in Finland. Today, there are 180-250 left. A lot of those who have stayed in the business have lost their faith in the future and fail to make the kind of investments required to make a future in fishing. Also, the fishermen are getting long in the teeth and it is difficult to attract young people into the profession.
Jukka Heinonen, a fourth generation fisherman, follows in the footsteps of his father Veli. The Heinones says fishing has become a high-investment, high-expenditure occupation. Professional fishing is getting rare in Finland. Jukka Heinonen is one of the survivors.“It takes capital to buy boats and traps. Fish fetches lower prices than ten years ago. When Finland joined the European Union, the price of foods dropped and value added tax was levied on primary productions. This is when the decline begun. The price of fish has not risen in 20 years,” says Veli Heinonen.
In addition to VAT, fishing has been hit hard by the rise in fuel prices. A short fishing trip uses up 150-300 litres fuel. Sometimes it takes several hours of boat driving to find a profitable catch of more than 200 kilograms.
From Customers to Wholesale
In the summertime Heinonen trawls. Trawling, which is a good way to catch vencace, powan and smelt, first came to Finland in 1986.Nowadays most fishing business takes place in the wholesale trade, instead of the traditional trade between fishermen and either retail businesses or individual customers.
Heinonen receives a bulk order from a wholesaler in the afternoon and fishing begins in the evening. After fishing the catch is prepared the same night. At four o’clock in the morning a fish lorry sets off towards Helsinki, where the wholesaler expects the delivery at six o’clock. From the wholesale business the fish makes its way to a retailer and, finally, to dinner tables.
Exporting Small Fish
Heinonen’s home port on lake Päijänne runs an EU-supported export project. The aim is to export small fish, such as vendace, smelt, perch and roach. Smelt is already well known, especially in the Netherlands, but it is not a very popular fish in the Finnish market. Perch is also becoming quite a good export.At the Padasjoki port, the small fish are frozen, packed into bags and stored into 300-kilo containers. Freezing the fish in small bags makes it easy for the consumer to take out just the right amount of fish at a time. Frozen small fish have been exported to Italy and the Netherlands. However, vendice, which is the most important fish in lake Päijänne, is still completely unknown in the European fish markets.
“There is potential in exporting small fish. All it takes is properly to research the products and to market them accordingly. There is no lack of volume, either; when small fish are in season, Finnish market is overflowing and the production has to be slowed down. If exporting small fish would work, the excess catch could be frozen and exported,” Heinonen states.
MATTI VALLI
PHOTO SEPPO SAMULI
