Les problèmes de développement de petites organisations de pêche
Authors: Lacour P. 
Published: April 2011

Small-scale organizations are effective channels through which small fishermen ("pêcheurs artisans") can gain access to factors of production making for progress traditionally beyond their reach. Institutionally speaking, what is needed is to "build a bridge" between subsistence fisheries and a modern industry, something that small fishermen’s organizations can do.Such organizations should relieve traditional community structures, in particular the village, in order to open the road to progress. They can provide a framework into which factors making for modernization — usually foreign to old customs — may be fitted.Because of certain unique features, fisheries require a sectorial and integrated approach to their problems. They generally achieve only a precarious equilibrium in an atmosphere of constant crisis placing small organizations under the obligation of making emergency decisions.Finding financing for boats is a major problem for all small-scale fishing. It necessitates close coordination between the assembly of resources and the policy of investment, which is only feasible at a relatively advanced stage in development and with the help of a credit organization.Everywhere, even among the poorest groups, there are latent possibilities for savings. The credit organization should constitute the institutional channel for the collection of savings, to be converted into productive investment. Fishermen’s savings can be supplemented by government advances or international aid.In order to develop, fishermen’s organizations need legal foundations and instruments. It is advisable to create special institutions capable of embracing all development factors. In practice, such institutions can be organized around credit agencies or around bodies with other pertinent functions.Another suitable means for development of small-scale fishermen’s organizations is through federation. The scope of requirements for services of all kinds, both pre and post-fisheries, is such as to impose a policy of vertical integration supplemented by regionwide or nationwide cross-integration. Integrated, multipurpose groupings would concentrate the financial power of small fishermen.Such a complex approach to development necessitates constant research, reflection, proffering of incentives, and manpower training. In the first stage this work can be done by some institution that is conscious of this function of synthesis leading to the creation of new economic structures. In such a case, the credit organization may subsequently assume responsibility for control work.The human factor in small-scale fisheries is unique, the people exhibiting great independence of spirit and reserve. The profound recasting of their mentality, a pre-requisite for development, can only be accomplished through manpower training programs integrated into village life.The social needs of seamen/fishermen are practically unlimited. Small fishermen’s organizations can expand their range of services to all aspects of working and family life. As a rule, this approach will lead the fishermen to reconsider the whole organizational setup of fisheries and of traditional fishing practices. Pilot experiments should be aimed at gradually changing old habits and modernizing both the way of life of the fishermen and the fisheries themselves.