Safety Culture Catching on in Nova Scotia Fishery
Various governmental agencies in Nova Scotia have been pushing the safety at sea issue for fishermen for quite some time — and their efforts seem to be paying off, in a big way.
While the commercial fishery remains the most dangerous occupation in Canada and each year claims far too many lives and limbs, the days of sailing without the prerequisite safety equipment aboard are long gone.
I remember when survival suits came out. The resistance was immense — they were too bulky and most ...
Better Productivity Necessary for Fishery to Evolve
Last month I talked about quality, probably the biggest issue we face as an industry.
This month, I will discuss productivity, another big issue that must be addressed, if we are going to have a better future. And, as we will see, the two issues are related.
Productivity is measured as a ratio:
Productivity = Output / Input
In other words, it is simply a measure of how much of something we get out compared to what we put in. It is a way to measure effectiveness and efficiency in ...
Adapting to Climate Change in Fisheries and Aquaculture
The United Nations recognizes climate change as one of the greatest challenges to global food security this century. Both terrestrial and aquatic environments are changing as a result of increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxides which result from the burning of fossil fuels and food production.
The agriculture and fishing industries are contributors to GHG emissions around the world, however, the good news is that the impact is much less than ...
Quality is Biggest Issue Facing the Fishery Today
Of all the challenges we have in the capture fishery in Atlantic Canada — and there are many — probably none is bigger or more important to the future of the industry than the need to improve the quality of our raw materials and finished products.
Quality is a foundation piece — it underpins everything else, determining what is possible in processing and marketing, our ultimate output value, the incomes earned by harvesters and plant workers and the profitability of plants and fishing ...
Georges Bank: A River Runs Through it
If you’re a Maritimer, it’s easy to get excited about a possible big oil strike off our shores.
I well remember the hoopla over Sable Island discoveries in the 1970s and the then Premier Gerald Regan holding a small vial of oil to a group of media types in Halifax — the photo made front page in the daily newspapers of the time.
There’s not a coastal community along our shores that hasn’t seen the population decline due to the lack of jobs here and the well-paying ones in the oil ...
The Times They Are a Changin’?
Any number of words can and have been used to describe the fishing industry in Atlantic Canada — including some highly ‘descriptive’ terms that are not exactly suitable for print.
However, one descriptor that seemed to appear on the lips of many when looking back at the year that was is the time-tested, French-borrowed phrase déjà vu.
Deja vu is the phenomenon of having the strong sensation that an event or experience currently being experienced has been experienced in the past ...
