They also worry that higher seafood prices would only worsen the shift in Japanese consumer tastes away from a traditional seafood-centered diet — known as sakana banare, or flight from fish.
“Higher fish prices will just encourage Japanese to eat more hamburgers and fried chicken,” said Nobuhiro Nagaya, a managing director at the fisheries federation.
US fishermen make similar complaints. They say they cannot raise prices because consumers can easily defect to cheaper chicken, pork and beef.
Nagaya and others here admit their fears may seem overblown to Americans, considering that the average Japanese still eats about 94g of fish a day, five times the amount consumed by the average American.
Still, gloomy sentiment about the future of Japan’s industry are shared by officials at the agriculture and fisheries ministry.
While their multimillion-dollar projects recall the government-orchestrated technology drives of previous decades, when Japan rose to global dominance in industries like semiconductors and supercomputers, officials express far more modest expectations today in an era of tight budgets and limited economic growth.
“Technology cannot be the only answer,” said Kazuo Hiraishi, an assistant chief in the ministry’s maritime technology research division. “But Japan’s excellence in electronics and energy-saving should be of some help to our fishermen.”
This sense of resignation, and wider apathy about the future of the industry, are some of the reasons Japanese fishermen have not taken to the streets with the same fervor as their European counterparts.
While fishermen in countries like France, Spain and Ireland have staged disruptive demonstrations, protests in Japan have been more sedate, though still large. In July, for instance, some 200,000 fishing boats stayed in port on a one-day strike, and thousands of fishermen gathered for a peaceful rally in Tokyo.
The government responded two weeks later with a US$700 million aid package that promised to pay 90 percent of fuel price increases since December, but only to fishermen who found ways to reduce their fuel consumption.
The package also contained subsidies to help fishermen buy efficient new engines, like the hybrid.
A US$250,000 subsidy from the agriculture ministry, for example, meant that Ikeuchi paid only US$650,000 for his hybrid trawler, the same price as a conventional boat.
Ikeuchi said his fuel use had dropped to about 284 liters a day, cutting his daily bill by about US$100. The propulsion system switches between a 650-horsepower heavy oil motor, which powers the main engine, and a 150-horsepower heavy oil motor, which turns a generator that runs a smaller electric engine for use when the boat moves slowly.
On a recent day, Ikeuchi showed off the boat, which he uses to hunt for scallops, Pacific cod and kelp, a delicacy in Japan. The only visible difference with other fishing boats in this small, man-made harbor was its dashboard, which featured small touch-controlled screens — high-tech devices for a craft made mostly of traditional-looking wood and steel.
Still, many fishermen who walked over to take a peek at the boat doubted it would be enough to save their industry.
“Fuel prices are just too high now,” said Kazuo Sawada, 51, a fisherman here. “No one will want to be a fisherman anymore.”
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