Economic Impact

June 28, 2012 – With fishermen under increasing pressure from factory fishing boats and government catch limits, two new ideas on how to keep the local fishing industry alive have recently broken the surface.

Both are intended to provide local fishing boats with a fixed-price market for their catch free from the day-to-day market fluctuations that currently determine the price for the fish they bring to shore. While both the new Duxbury-based business Open Ocean Trading and the South Shore Seafood Exchange, based in Scituate, create new markets for fishermen, they come at the job from different angles.

Open Ocean is thinking big, linking producers with big buyers. The South Shore Seafood Exchange is bringing back the age-old exchange of freshly caught fish from local boats to the waiting hands of customers on the pier in Scituate.

Using the Internet and commodity-based analysis to serve “customers on both ends,” Open Ocean arranges for fishermen to make direct contracts with “end buyers” such as grocery stores and fish restaurants for an agreed-on amount of fish at a previously determined price, owner Keith Flett said recently. Under the traditional auction system, that is impossible. Currently fishermen bring their catch to the few ports where dealers operate (such as Boston and New Bedford, but nowhere on the South Shore) and where their fish is inspected and sold by auction.

Since the auction determines the price for each species of the catch and prices can vary widely from day to day, fishermen never know how much money they have made — or possibly lost — until it’s sold.

Through the open market approach offered by Flett’s company, boat owners and captains can negotiate a price with a buyer such as a supermarket or restaurant chain and go fishing with a clear idea of their profit margin, said Flett, 31, who previously ran a wholesale business in New York.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe.

 

 

June 27, 2012 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Tuesday appointed Dr. William Karp as the next science and research director at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole

The NEFSC is the research arm of the National Marine Fisheries Service in federal waters from the Gulf of Maine to Cape Hatteras, N.C. Karp has served as acting director since January.

The fishing industry has long complained about the accuracy of fish stock assessments produced by NOAA's survey vessels and Dr. Brian Rothschild of UMass Dartmouth's School for Marine Science and Technology said Karp's appointment might signal a new beginning.

"This is a pivotal event in New England fishery management," he said. "We look forward to working with him and are hoping that now we can straighten out some of these contentious issues."

Karp, who was attending a fishing symposium in New Bedford on Tuesday when the news broke, previously worked at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, based in Seattle, for 25 years. "It's much more complicated in the Northeast," he said. "More people to get to know and many more interests."

Karp said he was certainly aware of the controversy surrounding NOAA's trawl surveys but was ready to take up the challenge.

 

Read the full story in the New Bedford Standard Times

 

 

June 15, 2012 – Omega Protein Corp., a nutritional ingredient company and the nation's leading vertically integrated producer of omega-3 fish oil and specialty fish meal products, today announced an update on its fishing efforts as of the close of business on June 8, 2012, the end of the eighth week of the Company's 2012 fishing season.

As of June 8, 2012, the Company's total fish catch was at approximately 162,200 short tons, a 29 percent increase compared to the corresponding eight-week period in the 2011 season, and a 68 percent increase compared to the Company's five-year average through week eight.

Omega Protein's fish oil yields were lower by 27 percent compared to those in the comparable eight-week period in the 2011 fishing season and were lower by 45 percent compared to the Company's five-year oil yield average through week eight. Total yields decreased 9 percent compared to the first eight weeks of the 2011 fishing season, and decreased 13 percent compared to the Company's five-year average through week eight with the decreases due primarily to the lower fish oil yields.

"We are pleased with our strong fish catch and fish meal production, despite experiencing disappointing fish oil yields season-to-date," commented Bret Scholtes, the Company's president and CEO. "Going forward, we remain focused on managing the controllable aspects of our business and we will continue to work on improving our marine operations to best position the Company to capitalize on improvements in market fundamentals as they may occur for fish meal and fish oil."

Read the full story here.

 

June 19, 2012 – The state's Lobster Advisory Council, as part of a broader initiative to rebrand Maine lobster to increase demand and boost prices, is considering recasting the name of the soft-shell lobster as something more … attractive.

"Not that many people have nice things to say about soft-shells," John Sauve, a consultant for the Lobster Advisory Council and president of the Food and Wellness Group in Portland, said last week at a meeting of lobstermen.

Soft-shells are lobsters that have molted recently, shedding their old hard shells so they can grow into new, larger shells. They have less meat per pound than hard-shells, but that meat is perceived as more tender and sweet. And they're easier to crack and eat.

So what's so bad?

For Maine's lobster industry, whose catch was worth more than $331 million last year, the problem is that soft-shells fetch lower prices because they have less meat and they're too fragile to pack and ship long distances.

Read the full story from the Portland Press Herald.

 

 

June 18, 2012 – The Maine wild blueberry industry has successfully marketed its product over the past decade and the Maine lobster industry may need to do the same thing if it wants to see the price for the state’s most valuable seafood increase.

About 50 lobstermen turned out Thursday evening at Oceanside High School to hear a presentation called “Project Maine Lobster.” The meeting was organized by the Maine Lobster Advisory Council. An earlier meeting had been held in Yarmouth and more are planned along the coast.

“This came out of the frustration when the bottom dropped out of prices in 2008. We’re not any better off today,” Bob Baines of South Thomaston, chairman of the advisory council, said.

Baines noted bait prices have more than doubled during the past year and fuel prices have tripled.

One way to increase prices is to increase demand and that is where marketing is being proposed.

Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher noted that any marketing plan will need the support of the industry before it would be introduced as legislation by the administration and sent on to the Legislature.

Gov. Paul LePage is a supporter of branding Maine products, Keliher noted.

John Sauve of the advertising and marketing company Food and Wellness Group said the right marketing can increase demand which would help push up the price of lobsters.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News.

 

 

June 12, 2012 — Buoyed by the success of food and drink advertising campaigns like "Got Milk?" the state Lobster Advisory Council wants Maine's lobster industry to spend $3 million to boost sales and market prices.

In a series of four meetings across the state, the Lobster Advisory Council will present a business plan and marketing proposal to strengthen the brand of the Maine lobster and build more profitable demand in new and existing markets. The first meeting will be held from 6 to 9 tonight at the Log Cabin in Yarmouth.

"The time has come. We need to do something," said Bob Baines, the council's chairman. "The price of lobster is the same as it was 10 years ago. The cost of bait has doubled. Fuel has tripled."

The new business effort includes a goal of spending $3 million on marketing, up from about $400,000 currently, Baines said. The budget and marketing effort would be phased in over three years.

The money for the campaign would come from lobster harvesters, dealers and processors. The industry employs about 4,000 people in Maine.

"It's a supply-and-demand business. We need to increase demand," Baines said. "Our biggest competition is the other seafood on the center of the plate. We need to do more to get that center plate role."

The meetings will provide a chance for the council and its consultant to present the marketing plan and for people in the industry to provide feedback. That will determine whether the Lobster Advisory Council moves forward with the idea or abandons it. Officials from the state Department of Marine Resources will be at the meetings to hear responses.

Details of the marketing plan were not available Monday.

"Selling a commodity is very challenging," said Timothy Calkins, clinical professor of marketing at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. "It's not enough to say that it's a Maine lobster. You need to say why that matters."

 

Read the full story on The Portland Press Herald 

June 12, 2012 – The entire Indiana University community mourns the passing today of Distinguished Professor Elinor Ostrom, who received the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for her groundbreaking research on the ways that people organize themselves to manage resources.

Ostrom, 78, died of cancer at 6:40 a.m. today at IU Health Bloomington Hospital surrounded by friends. She was senior research director of the Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Distinguished Professor and Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science in the College of Arts and Sciences, and professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs.

She is survived by Vincent Ostrom, her husband and colleague. She also leaves behind a large extended family of colleagues, collaborators, staff and friends, in Bloomington and on five continents, who worked closely with her during an extraordinary 50-year career.

Ostrom shared the 2009 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, also known as the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, with University of California economist Oliver Williamson. She was the first woman and remains the only woman to be awarded the prize.

Read the full story from the University of Indiana here.

Read about some of Professor Ostrom's work as it relates to catch shares here.

 

 

June 11, 2012 — NEW BEDFORD — The Commercial Marine Expo, a regional trade show catering to all who earn their living on the water, returns to the State Pier in New Bedford Wednesday and Thursday. Held every other year, the show first started in Providence as Fish Expo Atlantic before relocating to New Bedford. The Expo arrived here in 2010 and sold out all of its exhibition space, and the move proved beneficial to all involved, according to show director Ted Hugger of Highliner Events, the show's sponsor.

"Taking the show to the waterfront, among all the fishing boats, tugs and work boats, really brought it back to its roots," he said. "The feedback we got from our exhibitors after we brought the show here was terrific."

The most pleasing aspect was the cross-section of people from the various marine disciplines who came, Hugger said. "There were lots of fishermen but we also got people from barges and tugs, naval architects, the Coast Guard and the military," he said.

Preparations for this year's show are moving into high gear now, he said, with 45 semi-trucks poised to bring in the equipment and materials required for set-up. The show has been marketed more intensively in the media this year and Highliner also mailed 12,000 postcards to a targeted audience. All told, around 200 exhibitors will be represented with 50,000 square feet of indoor exhibit space, Hugger said, including all of the marine businesses in the New Bedford and Fairhaven area.

In addition to exhibit booths inside the state pier buildings, there will be in-water displays at the state pier including tugs, a fire boat, a fishing boat and other work boats. Cooking demonstrations, free health screening and survival suit races are also part of the program. Admission to the show is free to anyone connected with the marine trades. Pre-registration has increased 30 percent over 2010, Hugger told The Standard-Times on Friday.

 

Read the full story at The New Bedford Standard Times

June 9, 2012 — There have been plenty of headlines devoted to the problems besetting the commercial fishing industry in New England in recent years. But fishermen in other parts of the country also have been suffering as they struggle to preserve their traditional way of life in the face of globalization.

"Wild Caught: The Life and Struggles of an American Fishing Town," a film documentary showing here Friday night, offers an intimate look inside the small fishing community of Sneads Ferry in North Carolina, where sustainable small-scale shrimping, crabbing and fishing have provided a livelihood for its hardy inhabitants for more than 300 years.

The film introduces us to characters such as John Wayne Midgett, a crabber teaching his young son how to fish, and shrimper Mac Liverman, who is passing his knowledge of the sea down to his young grandson. Matthew Barr's documentary takes his audience onto the boats and into the homes and churches of these hard-working, shore-dwelling people.

"Wild Caught" has been screened around the country and at a film festival in France, and comes to New Bedford as part of the monthly Dock-U-Mentaries series, a co-production of the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park and the Working Waterfront Festival.

The locale may differ from New Bedford — and the accents surely do — but the problems these southern fishermen face sound very familiar. Burdensome regulations, low catch limits, rising fuel costs and competition from cheap imports have forced many longtime fishermen to abandon the fishing business.

Released in 2006, "Wild Caught" is the product of a warm relationship that film maker Matthew Barr and his wife Cornelia developed over several years with the extended fishing families of this small community.

"I'm interested in documentaries about working people, traditional ways of life and the threats posed by modernity," Barr said in a phone interview. His previous work includes "Carnival Train," a documentary on traveling carnivals and the people who staff them.

A professor at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro, Barr stumbled across Sneads Ferry in 1999 when he was offered a stay in a condo there, and noticed the shrimp boats passing by. "I spent nine months hanging around and gained the trust of folks," he said.

 

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard Times

June 8, 2012 — The owner of the Gloucester fishing vessel Lori B — ordered by the U.S. Coast Guard in April to suspend monkfishing activities south of Nantucket because of Navy submarine exercises in the area, it was later determined — can recoup the fish that were left spoiled in the fixed gear, the National Marine Fisheries Service said Thursday.

Allison McHale, special assistant to the regional administrator of the northeast region, said the decision to allow the Lori B to use the lost three days of landings in the cycle running from May 1, 2012, through April 30, 2013, had been cleared through the Gulf of Maine Research Institute to the boat, owned by Richard Burgess of Manchester.

Burgess, who operates a small, multi-boat business in Gloucester, said Thursday he had not yet been notified of the action, which effectively allows him to land 14,000 pounds of monkfish.

That catch would replace the fish he was barred from hauling back after the Lori B was hailed by the Coast Guard cutter Campbell at about 8:30 a.m. on April 29, according to a written narrative of the incident by Burgess and submitted to the office of Sen. Scott Brown. Brown, who serves on the Senate Homeland Security Subcommittee, forwarded it to the committee, which took up the issue with the Navy and with the National Marine Fisheries.

Burgess Thursday expressed exasperation that the Navy had chosen prime fishing water and time near the April 30 end of the fishing year for military training operations.

Although NMFS' decision to allow him to keep the days at sea which were scheduled to expire at midnight on April 30 gives him a second chance to land the 14,000 pounds of monkfish, the investment in the aborted trip is still lost, said Burgess.

Burgess estimated fuel alone for the round-trip from New Bedford to Block Canyon — an area about 60 miles south of Nantucket — cost his business between $5,000 and $6,000.

"They knew the gear was there, and they still picked that place for their operations," he said.

Although normally based in Gloucester, the Lori B works out of New Bedford when fishing in Southern New England waters.

 

Read the full story in the Gloucester Times