There’s a longstanding convention that the small amounts of fish that crews get to take home for their own consumption are overlooked in official figures and not deducted from quotas.
Norway’s Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Marianne Sivertsen Ness has made it clear that this policy isn’t going to change, despite a proposal from the Directorate of Fisheries to introduce requirements for ‘homers’ to be recorded and deducted from vessel quotas.
‘I will not take this proposal further. The proposal has been on the agenda previously, and it was not taken further in the current regulations at that time,’ the minister stated.
‘Fish for the household is an important part of our coastal culture and is a tradition that has remained through many generations. I have no plans to take this away from fishermen.’
The practice of taking fish home for household consumption represents an exception to the otherwise strictly enforced Norwegian landing regulations, which require that everything harvested and landed in commercial fisheries be recorded.
This same matter came up for consultation in 2022 as one of the outcomes of the Fisheries Control Committee’s recommendations.
