The mullet harvest ended today Wednesday (31), complaints and expectations for the 2020 harvest have already started. In 2019, 29 vessels obtained authorization from the federal government to fish 18 of them in Santa Catarina. On Tuesday, some boats that obtained a late license had not yet completed their quota and were on the high seas trying to chase the damage imposed by lawlessness and judicial confusion.

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The coordinator of the Siege Chamber of the Union of Shipowners and Fishing Industries of Itajaí and Region (Sindipi), Agnaldo Hilton dos Santos, says that the sector ends the fishing season with the feeling of having been wronged. The industrial harvest of mullet was suspended by the courts before starting, and was authorized a month late, after the government managed to prove that there is safety in Sistainha, the counting system of the National Secretariat of Aquaculture and Fisheries (SAP).

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As each boat, this time, had an individual quota of around 50 tons, the tendency is for the harvest not to exceed the limit encouraged by the government. This year, industrial fishing compensated with a reduction in the number of vessels and in the amount of fish released the excess catches in 2018.

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The concern of shipowners and fishermen and the new parameters for the next harvest, which will arise from the work of on-board observers, professionals who were hired by the Ministry of Agriculture to closely monitor the work of the vessels. In all, seven observers received government-funded training, carried out by the Instituto Sagres, in Brasília. Three of them were from Pernambuco, and the others from Santa Catarina. With the delay in releasing the harvest, observers in the Northeast were dismissed.

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