Local Elites and Subsidies in Current Brazilian Fisheries Regulation

The fishery law currently in effect in Brazil (since 2003) provides some benefits to artisanal fishermen, such as financial credit to support the acquisition of new vessels and fishing supplies. The federal government pays a considerable part of the interest on credit loans to fishermen, since they are registered as artisanal ones in the Ministry of Fisheries. The stated reason of this recent public policy is the importance of artisanal fishery; the financial credits are considered as a way to encourage this activity. Besides this reason, there are some other facts to understand why the subsidies model to fisheries is still used in Brazil. This paper aims to demonstrate a sort of partnership between government agents and Brazilian local elites to construct subsidies model to fisheries. Some companies are interested in these subsidies because they buy the production of artisanal fishermen to resell it. As consequence, the prices of fishing products in Brazilian market are increasing and some species are disappearing because of the overfishing process. This investigation is based on analysis of a) legislation process of the currently fishery regulation and b) official numbers of production and prices in Brazilian fishery market.