The sea at heart: Understanding family-owned German brown shrimp fishery

The brown shrimp fishery is the most valuable coastal fishery in Germany. Family-owned beam trawlers under 20m length operating in the shallow Wadden Sea account for the vast majority of catches. We discussed the economic structure of a brown shrimp beam trawler with captains and managers. The focus group created a full-cost account of such a vesse laccording to the typical farm approach of agri benchmark Fish. Our results depict the independent and profitable character of this fishery, yet they also show its vulnerability for price and catch fluctuations.