Patrice Guillotreau

The demand for seafood eco-labels in France.

The French fishing industry has a long history and its seafood market a wide variety of products. Despite the worldwide growth in ecolabelling schemes over the past decade, the French industry has only very recently shown an interest in such schemes. Growing consumer and retailer awareness of environmental issues in France has changed the situation and it is now of interest to look at the demand for seafood ecolabelling in relation to the public perception of commercial fishing.We analyse, using an ordered Probit model, the factors influencing consumer demand for seafood ecolabelling on the basis of a French survey carried out on more than 1000 consumers. Our results show a significant relationship between the acceptability of ecolabelling and certain purchase criteria. The production process characteristics in (origin, wild vs. farmed, level of natural stocks) impact more strongly on the demand for ecolabelling than product attributes (form, visual appeal, freshness). Consumers are also influenced more by regulation than by information, inaccurate or otherwise, they may have about the fishing industry. Finally, our analysis confirms a higher demand for ecolabelling from young, educated consumers, particularly those living in non-coastal areas.

Price-Cost Margins and Structural Change: Sub-Contracting within the Salmon Marketing Chain

Some recent studies have benefited from advances in time series econometrics in order to evaluate price transmission mechanisms along the marketing chain. Due to the length of time series, structural changes may affect the evaluation of price-cost margins. In the case of the fresh salmon trade between Norway and France, the gross margin between producers and retailers has changed in level between January 1988 and December 1999. This article accurately identifies the date of a structural change using a range of recent ADF testing procedures (Gregory-Hansen tests, forward and backward recursive tests), before looking for the causes of the change through a survey. Two major factors can be identified: the product form and the marketing channel. Interestingly, both the increasing level of processing and the development of supermarket chains have resulted in a new role for the intermediaries, shifting from mere commercial intermediation to sub-contracting for the big retailers. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2005.

Trade barriers and European imports of seafood products: a quantitative assessment

Two opposite principles are guiding the common commercial policy in Europe: the community preference and the security of supply for the European market. During the market crisis of 1993-1994 in France when the prices dropped down, fishermen asked for more protection in order to reduce fish imports. This paper deals with the impact of import protection on the European imports of fishery products. A quantitative assessment is developed through a panel data import function. The main conclusion is that import protection has little effect on imports. However, the results show a different impact of trade barriers on seafood imports according to the level of processing; the protection is expectedly more effective for processed fish than for primary goods, because trade barriers are higher. Moreover, whatever the commodities, other effects appear to be far more influential than trade barriers on import levels. These are price effects (including exchange rate), or the distance between countries.

The use of a micro-scale index to identify potential death risk areas due to coastal flood surges: lessons from Storm Xynthia on the French Atlantic coast

Storm Xynthia (February 2010) was responsible for a large sea surge along the French Atlantic coast. It resulted in the flooding of low-lying coastal areas during the night. Urbanized areas were impacted and 41 people died by drowning in their homes. The location and type of construction of the houses in the affected area contributed to the death toll. The fact that the inadequacy of construction with regard to coastal flood hazard could lead to death was one of the most important lessons of the storm. The French government decided to buy back and scrap the most dangerous buildings hit by Xynthia. In order to prevent future deaths by drowning, we have developed a tool (the V.I.E. index) to identify houses where a risk of death due to a coastal flood cannot be excluded. The goal is to propose individual-based solutions for risk mitigation of residential houses. This tool uses a micro-scale-level analysis along with four criteria: (1) the potential water depth per house, (2) the distance between the dike and the house, (3) the architectural typology and (4) the closeness to rescue point. The methodological background and the first results for three towns are presented in this paper. Limitations and further developments are also discussed.

The Impact of Prices on Seafood Trade: A Panel Data Analysis of the French Seafood Market

In the early 1990s, two major crises affected the French fish market. Low import prices were suspected to have affected import levels offish. Therefore, this paper looks at the empirical economic factors of fish imports in France. Most economic papers related to this field use a demand function of imports for a single product and focus only on trade relations between two countries. In this research, a panel data trade model is used at the multilateral level with many trade partners and products over several years. Results are presented by product groups at both aggregated and disaggregated levels. French imports appear to be very sensitive to internal price competitiveness and nominal exchange rates, with a differentiated impact according to the degree of processing. From that model, simulations show the consequences of the implementation of a single European currency on seafood trade.

A comparative appraisal of the resilience of marine social-ecological systems to mass mortalities of bivalves

In many parts of the world, both wild and cultured populations of bivalves have been struck by mass mortality episodes because of climatic and anthropogenic stressors whose causes and consequences are not always clearly understood. Such outbreaks have resulted in a range of responses from the social (fishers or farmers) and governing systems. We analyzed six commercial bivalve industries affected by mass mortalities using I-ADApT, a decision support framework to assess the impacts and consequences of these perturbations on the natural, social, and governing systems, and the consequent responses of stakeholders to these events. We propose a multidimensional resilience framework to assess resilience along the natural, social, and governing axes and to compare adaptive responses and their likelihood of success. The social capital and governability of the local communities were key factors affecting the communities’ resilience and adaptation to environmental changes, but the rapid degradation of natural ecosystems puts the bivalve industry under a growing threat. Bivalve mariculture and fishing industries are likely to experience increased frequency, severity, and prevalence of such mass mortality events if the resilience of the natural systems is not improved. An understanding of previous adaptation processes can inform strategies for building adaptive capacity to future events.

Local, regional and global markets: what drives the tuna fisheries?

Abstract Tuna products are amongst the most popular seafoods in the world and widely traded across the globe. Their global trade developed at a very early stage in the growth and development of tuna fisheries. In this article, recent evolutions of tuna markets in terms of products (for both sashimi and cannery-grade tuna products), market structures, and trade are introduced followed by a comprehensive study of global integration through price linkages. Most studies show a high degree of market integration and competition through prices at the world-wide level. Finally, we introduce some original results about the relationship between catches and prices (estimated coefficients of demand elasticity and flexibility), and provide answers to a few key questions for tuna fisheries and markets, including: How do consumers respond to price changes? Are fish price changes fully transmitted to consumers? Is there any economic incentive for fishers to comply with reduced catch quotas? Do fishers target particular tuna species according to the relative price of tuna species?