Overwhelmed by a tsunami of imported farmed shrimp,
American shrimpers now only hold a fraction - perhaps less than 12
percent - of the U.S. market that they once dominated. But while they
have been hit hard by free trade and the theory of comparative
advantage, these are not theoretical people. They are decent Americans
who are hurting.
Recently, I visited Terrebonne Parish in the
southernmost part of Louisiana to try to understand the domestic
shrimpers' situation.
Terrebonne Parish is in the heart of Cajun country,
a treasured part of Americana. The isolated bayous and marshes are also
renowned for their haunting beauty. As Henry Wadsworth Longfellow noted
in his 1847 poem, Evangeline, "They who dwell there have named it
the Eden of Louisiana!"
People here are suddenly - harshly - aware that they
have lost their economic innocence, and that their formerly isolated
Eden is now connected to the global economy. The U.S. shrimpers are
faced with the fact that anyone who has to catch shrimp in the ocean is
at a comparative disadvantage to foreign competitors, who use modern
aquaculture to farm all the shrimp they wish with cheap labor.
Clearly, American shrimpers are learning to adapt to
a new world where marketing is all-important. But for many, this is a
hard lesson.
I met a 25-year-old shrimper named Benji. Benji left
school after the eighth grade to work as a deckhand, as his father had
before him. "Trolling is fun," he said. "All I ask, is
bring the price back where it used to be," Benji added. Benji is in
real trouble. He doesn't yet understand that the good old days are gone.
And Benji doesn't have the education he'd need to market shrimp smarter.
Kim Chauvin, however, is learning how to adjust to
the foreign competition. Kim is a pleasant 35-year-old mother of three.
When times got tough for U.S. shrimpers, the Chauvin family learned how
to compete.
"My husband David has been a shrimper for 17
years," Kim said, holding up a picture of the Mariah Jade, a
73-foot boat named for her daughter. David Chauvin and his father built
the boat with their own hands, which I learned was fairly common in
Cajun country. "And he hasn't worked this hard all these years,
just for us to give up."
Kim recently graduated from a 10-week
entrepreneurial class at the nearby Nicholls State University. She
studied marketing and worked with bankers, lawyers and government
officials.
"I had to write a business plan," Chauvin says.
These days, the Chauvin family is busy selling
domestic shrimp with their new retail business, Shrimp Express. Some
customers travel hundreds of miles to buy delicious Gulf shrimp.
But the cultural distance that shrimpers like the Chauvins have come -
taking the difficult steps to learn how to survive in an unfamiliar
global economy - has been an even longer journey. Changing a mindset, a
way of life that has resisted change for generations, is extremely
difficult.
Alas, not all American shrimpers will survive. But I came away from
Terrebonne Parish enriched for the experience of meeting these wonderful
people.
Dixie Blake, a seafood marketing
consultant in San Diego, can be e-mailed at dblake@divcom.com
