Economic Impact

Moscow – Russian salmon producers in Sakhalin are considering expanding in the U.S. and EU market, due to the planned exodus of Alaska salmon producers from the MSC program after October 29, 2012.

One of the reasons for the decision by Alaska salmon producers is the understanding that their fishery is sustainable and certifiable by 3rd parties other than the MSC. There is a possibility that a vacant market niche that requires MSC salmon certification may soon be occupied by Russian competitors who have MSC certification. One of such company could be OAO "Gidrostroy”, which harvests pink and chum salmon close to Iturup island of Kuril Ridge.

At present the company sells its products in Asia, the U.S. and the EU markets, while the volume of its production is estimated at 37,000 tons of pink salmon and 10,000 tons of chum salmon annually. Gidrostroy has plans to increase its production volumes in the future.

This article is reproduced with permission from Seafood.com, a subscription site.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With each fishing trip, fuel savings can be gained at various points, beginning with fishing vessel design and engine efficiency. Where and when people travel to fish are factors, as well as the kind of gear. Weight and resistance—when gear is in contact with the bottom, or fills up with fish—cause drag. The engine uses more fuel as it works harder against these forces.

“At this point, making money in groundfishing is all about the efficiency and business. Fishermen have some control over fuel use and small changes can have a positive impact on their businesses.” said Ben Martens, executive director of the Maine Coast Fishermens Association.”

“You can save up to 50 percent of what you spend on fuel by paying attention to your fuel usage and using gear that has less drag,” said Eayrs. As part of the project, Eayrs installed fuel-flow meters on the participating vessels. The meters act as a constant reminder to captains to watch how much fuel is being burned at any given time. “It raises my awareness of fuel,” said Travis Thorbjohnson, another fishermen participating in the research, “I see that when I ease back on the revs a little, I use less fuel but don’t lose speed. When I am towing for 24 hours, a little bit makes a difference.”

Read the complete article from The Working Waterfront.

 

 

 

 

 

 

NEW BEDFORD — A growing seafood processor has expanded its business operations with the recent acquisition of a 15,000-square-foot building in the South End.

Mariner Seafood, like many of its neighbors in the South Terminal area, is an international fresh and frozen seafood company. But the company had outgrown its former location and jumped at the opportunity to move to its new location on South Street.

"We've been processing fish on Hassey Street for almost two years, but it was just too small," company president and founder Jack Flynn said.

Mariner currently employs 35 people, and over the next 12 months expects to add another eight to 10 jobs, he said.

Read the complete story from The Standard-Times

 

 

 

 

 

NEW BEDFORD — New Bedford fishermen voiced serious concerns about the impact of offshore wind turbines on fish stocks and navigation at a meeting Monday with federal officials from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

The morning meeting at the city's Wharfinger building was called to provide the industry with input on the 1,300 square miles of federal waters south of Martha's Vineyard where offshore turbines are being proposed.

"We're very concerned about winter flounder spawning areas," said Ron Smolowitz of the Fisheries Survival Fund. Studies have shown large concentrations of this species in the proposed area, he said. "What about the transmission lines? Winter flounder are a sub-strate species and their eggs adhere to the bottom," he said. Little is known about the possible impact of electromagnetic frequencies on surrounding fish habitat, Smolowitz added.

Fisherman Tony Alvernaz said he is worried about the structural integrity of the turbines and their capacity to withstand ocean storms.

Read the complete story from The Standard-Times

 

 

 

 

 

The Labor Department on Friday unveiled rules that reshape a program for foreign migrants in work other than agriculture, which officials said would strengthen protections for those workers and also spur recruitment of Americans for such jobs. It was the latest move in a protracted battle between employers and the Obama administration over the nation’s temporary guest workers.

The extensive rules — 575 pages long — make important changes across the program, which is known as H-2B. The changes were hailed by advocates for guest workers, who said they would make it more difficult for businesses to exploit vulnerable foreign migrants and hire them to undercut Americans.

But reflecting the divisions over the program, employers who use it regularly said the new rules, which will take effect April 23, would make the process too slow and cumbersome for their seasonal businesses and would ultimately lead to the loss of American jobs.

“This is another log in the road to derail the whole industry here,” said Jack Brooks, a crab processor from the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland who is a member of a group of employers in the H-2B program, the Coalition to Save America’s Seafood Industry. “If you take the seafood people away, tens of thousands of American jobs are at risk,” Mr. Brooks said.

Read the complete story from The New York Times

 

 

 

 

 

BATH, Maine — Most commercial fisheries in Maine are different from the lobster industry in one crucial aspect: annual catch totals have not consistently gone up over the past 20 years.

Landings for species such as shrimp, scallops, herring, urchins and many types of groundfish peaked in Maine in the 1980s and 1990s, which has led to economic challenges for fishermen as their costs increase and their catches decline. Even in Maine’s lobster fishery, which according to preliminary estimates may have hit a record high in 2011 of more than 100 million pounds, lower prices and rising expenses have put a crimp in the industry’s bottom line.

There is one new scallop dealer based in the midcoast area, however, who thinks she may be able to offset declining catches in that fishery with a new product. Togue Brawn, a former Maine Department of Marine Resources staffer, is the first dealer in Maine to get a special license to buy and sell scallops still attached to the shell. In December, she began buying scallops in the half-shell from half a dozen of Maine fishermen and then selling them to restaurants as a value-added product.

No fishery in Maine has faced tougher times in recent years than the scallop industry. Low population estimates led the state to nearly cancel the second half of the 2009 scallop season, and since then DMR has prohibited scallop harvesting in several areas along the coast in an effort to get stocks to rebound. Even in areas where harvesting has been allowed, scallop fishermen this winter have been coping with low landings, especially in Cobscook Bay, which has long been considered one of the best scalloping areas in the state.

Read the complete story from The Bangor Daily News

 

 

 

 

 

 

Massachusetts officials are examining ways to better promote local seafood and combat perceptions that stocks are depleted.

Those initiatives were discussed during the first full meeting today of the Seafood Marketing Commission, a group comprised of lawmakers, state officials, restaurant leaders, and commercial fishermen.

“Part of what we’re doing here is playing defense against perceptions that we are abusing the ocean and will catch anything,” said state Senator Bruce Tarr, a Gloucester Republican. “For a long time we have focused our priorities on regulation. But we haven’t promoted our fish the way we should be and telling the story of how sustainable our fish are and how important it is to the local economy.”

The goal is to brand Massachusetts seafood — the way Maine does with lobster and Alaska promotes salmon — as a healthy, sustainable food that supports the local economy. Several members of the committee suggested using technology to trace fish from the sea to the plate as a way to engage consumers in the story of how their seafood was caught.

Read the complete story from The Boston Globe

 

 

 

 

 

PORTSMOUTH — The Seacoast's independent groundfishermen are not the only ones concerned with measures that could restrict their ability to catch cod in the Gulf of Maine. Local party and charter boat operators say the regulations could cost them their livelihoods, as well.

"It's going to shut us right down," said Bill Wagner of Captain Bill's Charters, formerly of Portsmouth and now out of Rye Harbor. "We're going to fight for our lives Wednesday."

Wednesday is the second day of a three-day meeting of the New England Fishery Management Council, taking place at the Sheraton Harborside Hotel in the city's downtown. Wednesday's talks will focus on a groundfish committee report that suggests the Gulf of Maine cod stock is in a dire state.

The 2011 preliminary cod stock assessment is vastly different from the 2008 assessment, which suggested the number of fish able to reproduce in 2007 was around 74.9 million pounds and that overfishing was not occurring. The new assessment has the spawning stock biomass at 26.5 million pounds, with a total biomass around 46.3 million pounds, and states overfishing is occurring.

Read the complete story from The Seacoast Online

 

 

 

 

 

In a December 2 letter to former NOAA Fisheries Northeast Regional Administrator Pat Kurkul, Pat Kavanagh, a New Bedford, Massachusetts fisherman who is a member of the Sustainable Harvest Sector, accused members of the Northeast Seafood Coalition Sectors of having a 'de facto' cartel, after a Northeast Seafood Coalition member exercised his right of first refusal under the sector contracts of the Northeast Seafood Coalition Sectors.

A member of the Sustainable Harvest Sector who is also a member of the Associated Fisheries of Maine has told Saving Seafood that Mr. Kavanagh first raised his concerns with both groups, neither of which felt "the matter warranted any further consideration." Mr. Kavanagh then sent his personal letter of complaint to Administrator Kurkul.

Administrator Kurkul forwarded the issue to the New England Fisheries Managment Council, noting that because "this provision may affect the liquidity of the ACE trading market, the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) may want to consider this issue in upcoming sector discussions."  The NEFMC has not done so to date.

In her cover letter, Administrator Kurkul noted that her "understanding is that all sectors have included a right of first refusal within their operations plans in an attempt to protect the sector and its membership. However, all Northeast Fishery Sector operations plans also include a right of first offer" which applies to ACE transfers by its members. Essentially, any Northeast Fishery Sector member can lease ACE from another member before this is offered to anyone who is not in a Northeast Fishery Sector."

She continued "A sector contract is a private agreement between a fisherman and the sector and the current regulations do not prohibit a sector from establishing a right of first refusal or a right of first offer. For this reason, we have approved these provisions in sector contracts. Fishermen may choose whether or not to join a sector based on many factors, including contract provisions."

The right of first refusal in the business plans of all 12 sectors organized by the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition — representing more than half the active boats in the catch share groundfishery — has been used to wrongly restrain trade in catch shares and fishing permits, a New Bedford fisherman has alleged.

Read the letter from Mr. Pat Kavanagh to former NOAA Fisheries Northeast Regional Administrator Pat Kurkul and Administrator Kurkul's cover letter forwarding Mr. Kavanagh's letter to the New England Fisheries Management Council

Read the complete article in The Gloucester Times

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A statutory need to address a reported widespread decline in the status of the Gulf of Maine cod was translated Wednesday into terms of a potential economic catastrophe for the New England groundfishing industry — with projections of dealing a $70 million hit to Gloucester's economy alone.

The venue was a day-long meeting of the Science and Statistical Committee for the New England Fishery Management Council, which took the extraordinary step of not endorsing the findings of the peer reviewed assessment.

That move avoided triggering the legal process of setting draconian catch limits on the most essential food fish for Gloucester's and region's groundfishing fleet.

Because of continuing and new doubts about the accuracy of the new assessment — a blunt repudiation of an optimistic assessment only three years ago — a discussion of the what the medicine might be prescribed was left for federal regional management council and higherups in the Obama administration.

Read the complete article by Richard Gaines in The Gloucester Times