Economic models must account for the (likely low) market power of beneficiaries and the likelihood of passthrough of benefits from them to other participants in the supply chain and/or to consumers. One of the project goals was to increase profitability for fishers by increasing revenues and decreasing costs. However, this notion depends on the presence of a producers’ surplus; production activities, in this case, are non-exclusive in that there are not high barriers of entry for other fishers to enter the market. Economic logic would indicate that a producers’ surplus would be exploited by other producers in the market, and the cost of fish would approach the cost of harvesting the fish, including economic rents. Indeed, the evaluation report shows that the number of boats increased, but the number of fish caught did not increase.
Lesson Learned