Thank you.
We did put in place with the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food a program under the CAFI program of $500,000 for the month of March, with a view to trying to promote lobster sales, trying to deal with existing inventories, and trying to move ahead with setting the stage for the 2009 fishery. We will be looking to work with other departments again in the coming fiscal year with a view to trying to continue the work on marketing and promotion of lobsters in markets.
We have, as you noted, been working with the various LFAs, lobster fishing areas, over the course of the last year, and we are continuing to do that with respect to looking at changes that might help with both the sustainability of the fishery in terms of some LFAs increasing carapace sizes, etc., as well as with the fishermen's groups to try to see if we can find a way to streamline and allow them to reduce their costs at this time. So licence stacking has been permitted. Combining has been permitted. Other measures have been looked at. That was done both to reduce the costs and to help respond to preserving the independence of the inshore fleet in Atlantic Canada where some fishermen had acquired another licence. We are looking at ways to change the policies to accommodate some of those factors.
With respect to this industry, though, it's clear that over the last number of years the business model that has been followed has been based on a high level of abundance. We've had record fishing landings for the last 20 years, and I think that was noted in the FRCC report, but it's not clear whether that's based on abundance or based on increases in effort. What used to happen is that lobster fishermen would put their traps out and haul them once a day. Now they're double-hauling. They're moving a lot more. They have larger boats. They can fish in worse weather. So the effort has gone up substantially. That has resulted in an increase in the landings in some areas, and there have been decreases in other areas, as you noted.
The problem is that the investment in the industry has been based on high levels of abundance and high prices. Both those had to be there if these enterprises were going to be able to break even. Now they're facing substantial changes, and we're going to have to look at how to change and how we manage this fishery.
We aren't, at this point, looking at a huge investment in a retirement program, as that's something that has been done in other fisheries in the past. We've stuck with the things like capacity creep. It comes back into the fishery. We are looking at trying to work with the fishermen to change some of the incentives to try to get better use of their investments, and to have their costs go down.
This year we are also trying to promote measures that they may wish to follow in order to ensure they're not going to glut markets, and specifically glut processing plants. As a lot of the food service has gone down--there's been a 50% drop in food service--that's been replaced by increased retail, but to get it into retail you have to have the products. If we overload the plants, we may end up with a situation in which they aren't going to be able to provide those products to the market.
We are not, at this point, going to seek large amounts of money for traditional buyback, but we are working within the whole community adjustment fund process and with LFAs to see if there's a possibility of some self-adjustment in the coming years.
I would point out that a lobster buyback or any licence buyback is not something that's going to resolve the fishing issue for this year. This year, we're going to have the crunch come upon us in April and May, and, quite frankly, any retirement program is not something we could bring to bear in that timeline.