India has made a strong case at the WTO for disciplining fisheries’ sops based on per capita subsidies instead of aggregate subsidies, arguing that while its own subsidies per fisher is estimated at about $35 per year some “historical subsidisers” provide subsidies as high as $76,000 per fisher per year.

“Annual aggregate subsidies provide a broad overview of the total financial support given to the fisheries sector but fail to reveal how this support is distributed among individual fishers. Aggregate figures can obscure disparities in subsidy allocation per fisher across countries. Per fisher subsidy metrics, on the other hand, offer insights into how much financial assistance each fisher receives,” said a paper submitted by India at the WTO’s negotiating group on rules.

India’s paper made a case for an intensity-based subsidies approach while designing disciplines for the over-capacity and over-fishing pillar of the on-going fisheries negotiations.

Prudent approach

Using the total value of subsidies could pin the responsibility on countries that are not responsible for unsustainable subsidies while exonerating countries that have a small absolute size (or fishing sector) but have a high intensity of subsidisation that could be unsustainable, it said.

“Therefore, a more rational and prudent approach would be to consider the subsidy amount per fisher, as the basis for imposing more rigorous disciplines on members,” the paper added.

Citing the example of India itself, the paper pointed out that the country provides a subsidy of $35 per fisher per year.  “A fisher receiving such a meagre amount of subsidy is unlikely to create over-capacity or engage in over fishing. In fact, Indian fishers, on an average, catch about 480 kg a year 40 kg a month. Therefore, such traditional fishing practices can be characterised as subsistence fishing,” the paper pointed out.

In contrast, historical subsidisers provide subsidies as high as $76,000 per fisher per year and the catch per fisher is as high as 2,37,130 kg per year, it said.

To curb over fishing

WTO members such as the EU, Japan, Norway and the US undertake distant water fishing and provide huge subsidies to their fishing community. China is also one of the largest subsidisers.

While WTO members reached an agreement on prohibiting subsidies that contribute to illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and over fished stocks (although many members are yet to ratify it), negotiations are on for curbing subsidies contributing to over fishing and over capacity.

More than one-third of global marine fish stocks have fallen to biologically unsustainable levels and over fishing and subsidies generate losses of about $88.9 billion in forgone net benefits, per an UNCTAD report published in 2022.