Welcome to NEFTA

The geographical area covered by NEFTA includes a number of major fishing ports and fleets. Peterhead is the UK's primary white fish port and also the location of most of the country's pelagic processing capacity. Fraserburgh meanwhile is the main centre for Scottish Langoustine (prawns) and is home to large prawn and pelagic fleets. Our area also includes bustling small-boat ports in the East Neuk of Fife and the traditional fishing ports of Aberdeen, Buckie, Macduff and Whitehills. Fishing remains crucially important to our coastal communities and the training and equipping of personnel is essential if the industry is to enjoy future prosperity.

NEFTA has responsibility for facilitating multi-disciplinary training for fishermen working on a diverse and modern fleet of vessels. The board of NEFTA takes this responsibility seriously and is striving to deliver high quality training to the fleet at a reasonable cost; tapping into government/EU funding via Seafish to run free courses wherever possible.

Sea fishing remains a dangerous occupation, and a significant part of our work involves arranging mandatory and non-mandatory safety training. We also however run a highly regarded 'Skillseekers' course for new entrants and mates and skippers training in conjunction with Banff & Buchan College. Other courses such as engineering and risk assessment are also available.

In an effort to diversify and reduce dependence on arranging courses for a smaller fishing fleet, NEFTA has also developed a suite of onshore training courses for the support service businesses located at our ports and we hope that this will become a larger part of our future work.

NEFTA is run by fishermen for the benefit of fishermen and fishing communities and if you can suggest any areas of training that can be added to our portfolio or ways that we could improve our service we would be delighted to hear from you.

Message form Derek Duthie - Chairman NEFTA