Date of Award

4-22-1980

Degree Type

Major Paper

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Marine Affairs

Abstract

In 1973, the New England Fishery Development Program (NEFDP), an industry/government partnership was formed to offset a portion of the economic decline of the New England fishing industry while encouraging the development of underutilized species and nontraditional fishery products. The purpose of this paper is to examine one of the NEFDP's development projects and to comment on its apparent success. This paper attempts to determine if domestic processors can be expected to produce whiting fillet blocks that can compete in the market place with foreign imports. Several aspects of the problem are favorably resolved-an abundant whiting resource is available; the domestic fleet has the capability to harvest the resource; a domestic processor has proven his ability to produce a high quality product; a significant demand for the product exists.The economic efficiency of full-scale commercial production has not been proven, however. Whether or not the production of whiting blocks can be a profitable venture for both the processor and the fisherman is still unknown.

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