May 29, 2014 — The locally caught seafood that makes it to market is often too far removed from the fishermen who hauled it in – they just aren’t able to sell their product in the same way that farmers can.
You can go to a farmers market and pick up a rump roast or pork loin straight from the local farm that raised the animal. At the same market, or at times in the produce aisle at a grocery store, you can pick up tomatoes and cucumbers, and know where they were picked within a few dozen acres.
But try to do the same with fresh Maine seafood, outside of the ubiquitous lobster, and you won’t have much luck. The locally caught seafood that makes it to market is often too far removed from the fishermen who hauled it in – they just aren’t able to sell their product in the same way that farmers can.
But that can change, and it has to change, if Maine is going to realize the full potential of its fishery and build on the state’s reputation for local food.
Read the full opinion piece at the Portland Press Herald