Economic Impact

June 7, 2013 — The first ever annual Sustainable Seafood Week has taken place in New York City. During the week, Village Fishmonger and Future of Fish hosted an exclusive hospitality industry round table at the Institute of Culinary Education to spark dialogue around how sustainable seafood – or “story fish” – can accelerate brand value.

Matthew Quetton of Future of Fish kicked off the roundtable by linking the disruptions happening in the seafood supply chain with what took place in the music industry a few years ago.

The digital music revolution allowed emerging, niche and alternative artists to get their music in front of audiences. The same, he argued, is happening to fish. Through what Mr Quetton coined “story fish” producers and fishers are able to add value to their product by telling its story and hence creating a deep sense of connection between the customer and the fish. This process – often referred to as the wineification of products – has played itself out for other commodities like coffee and chocolate over the last decade to some benefit to the farmers.

Chef Evan Hanczor, at Brooklyn’s Parish Hall restaurant, spoke in favor of trust and close personal relationships in the supply chain to ensure that the “story-fish” makes it to the menu. “It is straight from the sea to the table,” he said. “My middle man knows the fishermen personally, and is able to tell me exactly what today’s catch is and bring it to the restaurant.”

Another, more technology based approach, was offered by Keith Flett of Open Ocean Trading who said his system would “replace trust with accountability through legally binding forward contracts”. His company has developed an online trading platform connecting the fishers directly with large-scale purchasers, like institutional buyers and retailers.

Read the full story at The Fish Site

 

 

ELIOT, Maine — June 2, 2013 — It was the federally mandated codfish reductions that tipped the scales. The New England Fisheries Management Council (NEFMC) on May 1 imposed a 78 percent cut in the amount of cod that can be caught in the Gulf of Maine.

"I tried to figure out a way to solve the problem, and I couldn't," Robillard said. "When they (the council) said this is the way it's going to be, I said, 'I'm running.' It's the codfish that killed me. It brought a lot of us guys to our knees."

The 44-year-old Eliot man sold his boat in April and will soon be starting a new chapter as a residential building contractor. It's a future he looks forward to, but the past tugs at him.

"It was hard," he said. "It was hard to take stuff from my son and daughter off the boat. I mean I lived on the boat more than I did at the house. It was a member of the family."

Robillard said he joins a growing number of fishermen throughout the Northeast who have hung up their nets. He said when he first started, there were 800 to 1,200 groundfishing vessels; today, "I'd be surprised if there's 20 percent of that."

The cutbacks in cod catch limits are the most recent of a number of regulation changes and reductions in limits and days at sea over the years imposed by the federal government. The NEFMC has long said that overfishing off the coast of New England has endangered stocks.

In announcing the cuts in cod last January, John Bullard, Northeast regional administrator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said they were the only way to stem the industry's decline.

In a recent column in the Gloucester Times, he elaborated, stating, "If we are ever to rebuild cod stocks, we have to get the quotas low enough so they can be rebuilt. Even then, it may not be enough."

Robillard disagrees.

"In the 25 years I've been fishing, there are great years and there are poor years," he said. "I have no problems with rules and regulations. In fact, some were probably needed. But the recent cuts are a knee-jerk reaction. It's not that there aren't fish. People just give up hope."

Read the full story at The Portsmouth Herald

 

March 31, 2013 — Economically-speaking, sharks are worth more to society alive than they are dead, according to a new report in Oryx – The International Journal of Conservation.

While the deadly fish are prized for their fins as an exotic delicacy, an international team of researchers has found that the money brought in by shark-related ecotourism is expected to surpass the revenue made by catching and killing them over the next 20 years.

“The emerging shark tourism industry attracts nearly 600,000 shark watchers annually, directly supporting 10,000 jobs,” explained study co-author Andres Cisneros-Montemayor, a doctoral candidate with the University of British Columbia’s Fisheries Economics Research Unit. “It is abundantly clear that leaving sharks in the ocean is worth much more than putting them on the menu.”

According to Cisneros-Montemayor and his colleagues from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and Universidad Autónoma de Baja California Sur in Mexico, shark ecotourism currently generates over $314 million annually around the world and is expected to more than double to $780 million over the next two decades. Meanwhile, global shark fisheries currently generate $630 million, but that figure has been in decline for the past decade, the study said.

The joint research team examined shark-related fisheries and ecotourism data across 70 sites in 45 countries. They found that about $124 million in shark-related tourism dollars were generated annually in the Caribbean, providing more than 5,000 jobs. In Australia and New Zealand, shark ecotourism generated almost $40 million in tourism annually.

Read the full story at Red Orbit 

 

May 30, 2013 — As the executive director of the Gloucester Fishing Community Preservation Fund, I see first-hand the financial and personal devastation of these reductions on fishing families and dependent shore side businesses. My own family’s financial future is now threatened.

I have three adult sons who own and operate a fish offloading business that they started in 2008 with a dream of participating in an industry that federal statistics promised would be enjoying huge increased yields. These huge yields were to be the result of the years the fishery has been operating well within the strict limits set forth by what was said to be precautionary management. Many fishermen and shore side businesses trusted those projections and did their part to prepare to deliver the much needed protein to US seafood consumers.

Now, literally millions of dollars and families lives are at great risk. This Boston Fish Pier houses many long standing businesses who have endured decades of strict regulation now to be told that local supply of fish will be abruptly halted.

By not implementing interim measures and other mitigating measures proposed that were rejected, we are accepting known and permanent damages in return for speculated long term stock growth. Had the agency implemented interim measures, facilitated promised access to mortality closures and other proposed mitigating measures, fishing families and shore-side infrastructure would have a far greater chance of adjusting while the stocks still increase. That’s right, interim catch levels in 2013 would still result in the GOM cod stock increasing in size. This is the type of balance contemplated in the law that has not been adequately utilized, in our opinion.

I want to thank Attorney General Martha Coakley for sending this message today that fishing is still very important to the state of Massachusetts. We’re grateful to the Commonwealth (Gov Patrick, Secretary Sullivan, state legislators and the many members of Congress) for their continued support of our historic industry.

 

May 30, 2013 — Just three years ago, I had the ability to catch nearly 100,000 pounds of Gulf of Maine cod. My son and I worked hard to provide for our families and to put food on America’s tables. Yet today, I can catch just a fraction of what I used to catch. My livelihood has been slashed before my eyes because the scientific reports changed so drastically. Good afternoon, my name is Joe Orlando and I am from the fishing community of Gloucester. Like my father and my ancestors before me, I am a life-long fisherman. I own and operate the fishing vessel Padre Pio with my son, Mario. Padre Pio is a 65-foot trawl vessel, and we fish for groundfish like cod, haddock, and flounders off the coast of Massachusetts. We fish during the day and return at night to make an honest living while providing fresh, sustainable seafood to the world. My story is just like other small fishing businesses that have managed to survive reduction after reduction, and fishery management changes.

Fishermen like my son and I have worked hard and sacrificed to rebuild fish stocks. We did so with the promise that the future of the groundfish fishery would be very bright—with key fish stocks on target to be rebuilt by 2014. Because of that promise, I heavily invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in the fishery to make my business viable. Just three years ago, I had the ability to catch nearly 100,000 pounds of Gulf of Maine cod. My son and I worked hard to provide for our families and to put food on America’s tables. Yet today, I can catch just a fraction of what I used to catch—just 16,000 pounds of Gulf of Maine cod. On other species, I took an average cut of over 50 percent. My livelihood has been slashed before my eyes because the scientific reports changed so drastically. With these reductions, I can’t even afford to properly maintain my boat. Expenses keep adding up—my boat is due upgrades and an engine overhaul that’s going to cost $50,000 and I just can’t afford to do it. Other fishermen are in my same shoes—the reductions will cause safety issues too.

Mario and I have to carefully plan our fishing days now—we fished one trip this month, and I think we only have a couple more trips until mid-July. Then we’re done. We won’t be allowed to bring in enough to even pay my business’ debts. I am in financial ruin. My son, who has three young kids, a wife, and a new home wanted to take our business into the next generation. Now, it’s just not possible without some sort of help. There has to be balance between sustaining fish populations and sustaining fishing communities. It’s sad to think that our strong fishing history will possibly come to an end. Once the small fishing businesses that New England is known for are gone, they’re not coming back. We have to do something to preserve both the fish and our fishermen. The interim rule request for Gulf of Maine cod and haddock was a step in the right direction.

Thank you to Attorney General Coakley for your ongoing support for the commercial fishing community. Thank you for stepping up and recognizing that conservation can be achieved without destroying my business or this entire fishery. I appreciate your help to do what’s right.

May 30, 2013 — Nearly a month into a groundfishing year of crushing limitations — with cod landings off by 84 percent at Gloucester’s leading auction, and boat captains laying off family crew and selling homes to keep their boats afloat — Congressman John Tierney Wednesday expressed disappointment that the White House has “not done more” to help relieve the groundfishing industry disaster the administration acknowledged last September.

Tierney’s renewed push for aid comes with fishermen are taking desperate measures to avoid landing a year’s allocation of a single stock in a single tow, thereby forcing themselves off the water for the rest of the year, which just began May 1.

The allowable catch across the suite of most desired stocks were slashed by more than 50 percent.

Joe Orlando, captain of the mid-sized dragger Padre Pio and president of the 35-boat Gloucester trawl sector, was modifying his nets to keep them closer to the bottom as he shifts his fishing focus from the iconic cod and haddock to dabs — smallest of the flatfish, which burrow in the sand and mud of the Gulf of Maine.

He and the rest of the day boat fishermen preparing for the bittersweet opening June 1 of hundreds of nautical miles of water that was closed to fishing through May.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

 

May 28, 2013 — The latest advertising campaign from Legal Sea Foods embraces an inside joke at the restaurant company, a standard response to dumb things people say and do.

The punchline: People making foolish choices aren’t eating enough fish. The new Legal ads take that idea and run with it, playing up the virtue of fish as “brain food.”

A series of television ads will debut Friday, featuring YouTube videos of real-life acts best described as, well, stupid. There are no actors, simply people who went on to the Internet to post their ill-advised choices — licking an icy pole or driving into a garage door — and then gave one of New England’s most popular restaurants permission to broadcast them in prime time. “Fish is brain food,” the ads say. “We have fish.”

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

 

 

May 27, 2013 — Daily fish auction prices and landings at New England's commercial fish auctions can now be found in one website that can be accessed in more convenient and useful ways than in the past.

The Northeast Fisheries Science Centre’s (NEFSC) redesigned Market News website includes daily landing and price statistics, simple graphs, and a search function that makes it possible for readers to customize their report and export it to a spreadsheet.

“The Market News Office collects amazing real-time information about market conditions,” said Min-Yang Lee, an economist in the NEFSC’s Social Sciences Branch, who worked with Market News reporter Jack French to develop the new data display system.

"The new site simply modernizes the way that data are presented and makes it more useful to fishermen, dealers, processors and anyone else who is interested in fish markets," said Lee.

The new webpage highlights three species: cod, haddock and scallops, although data from all other species sold at the auctions are available.

Visitors can get the pulse of the market through the "quick look" graphs of daily prices and landings, as well as a weekly summary, for the most recent month. Change from the previous day’s report is indicated by percentage in text, and by red and green arrows, for positive or negative change, next to the graph.

Read the full story at Fish Info and Services (FIS)

 

 

May 24, 2013 — An Alaskan nonprofit community development quota corporation has bought a Seattle-based seafood processing and marketing company.

The Aleutian Pribilof Island Community Development Association (APICDA)’s board of directors voted on 17 May to buy Cannon Fish Company. The acquisition is expected to close July 1 of this year.

APICDA owns all or part of nearly two dozen commercial fishing vessels, two processing plants, and several sport fish and hunting lodges in Alaska, and works to support local economies through the seafood industry.

“The acquisition of Cannon Fish Company is an important step toward achieving APICDA’s purpose of developing stable local economies in each of our six member communities,” said Larry Cotter, APICDA’s CEO. “We will now be able to manage all aspects of our seafood operations from the boat to the table.“

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

May 25, 2013 — Fish auction prices and landing data used to be tabulated in handwriting. Now it is a new era, and NOAA Fisheries has developed an easy-access website to report on fish landings in New England in detail within 24-48 hours.

The site features three species with graphs and recent histories: cod, haddock and scallops. Dozens of other species are reported in somewhat less detail.

All of the data can be downloaded to spreadsheet programs by buyers and sellers, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Friday, the site was showing that cod and haddock prices continue to fluctuate and landings were sporadic

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times