Saving Seafood

Economic Impact

ANALYSIS: 2024 Scallop Season Expectations

April 11, 2024 — The 2024/2025 Atlantic sea scallop fishery season began on April 1, 2024. This fishery extends from the Mid-Atlantic region to the U.S.-Canadian border. The New England Fishery Management Council approved Framework Adjustment 38 in December, forecasting a catch of 27.4 million pounds of Atlantic sea scallops for the season. On March 22, 2024, NOAA issued the final rule in the Federal Register, effective from the season’s start. Per NOAA Fisheries, for the initial 60 days of the fishing year, vessels with limited access can utilize their remaining 2023 scallop allocation from the access area. These fishing trips must start by May 30, 2024. After this date, any unutilized 2023 access area allocations will become void.

Harvest projections of 27.4 million pounds marked a 2.4 million pound increase from the previous year. Contributing to the management actions of the first quota increase since 2019, the increase is a result, in part, of findings reported by the NEFMC that the scallop resource is not overfished and overfishing is not occurring, with most of the biomass currently concentrated on Georges Bank. Despite the increase, NEFMC also reported the Mid-Atlantic has experienced below average recruitment of incoming scallops since 2013.  Scientists have also expressed concern that warmer water temperatures and other environmental changes are contributing to scallop mortality, especially at the southern extent of the range near Virginia/North Carolina.

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com

Industry collaboration driving Sustainable Fisheries Partnership’s recent efforts

April 10, 2024 — The Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP) works at all levels of the seafood supply chain to achieve steady and continuous improvements in fisheries and seafood production.

At the 2024 Seafood Expo North America (SENA), which took place from 10 to 12 March in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A., SFP highlighted its innovative approaches to engaging industry, such as through their Supply Chain Roundtables; its support for effective small-scale fishery co-management; and its Bycatch Solutions Hub, which connects seafood companies and other industry players in an attempt to reverse the decline of ocean wildlife populations.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Technology affording fresh opportunities to seafood industry in a rapidly changing world

April 9, 2024 — Increased adoption of new technology has joined health, sustainability, the cost-of-living crisis, and other topics on a list of converging trends that are influencing a global seafood market projected to reach USD 605.5 billion (EUR 562.1 billion) in value by 2029, a new report from the Norwegian Seafood Council (NSC) has found.

Based on internal analysis and key industry insights, “Oceans of change: seafood trends for 2024” – the fourth report in NSC’s annual “Top Seafood Consumer Trends” series – declares the seafood industry to be at a crossroads in regard to technology, with the path forward requiring a blend of consumer awareness, industry adaptation, and regulatory foresight to ensure success.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Offshore wind proposals help New Bedford focus its workforce development

April 5, 2024 — All news about offshore wind inevitably leads many in New Bedford back to the same question: So, will this bring more jobs?

That was true once again last week when three major wind developers submitted project bids that include significant investment into New Bedford’s port.

Projects from Vineyard Offshore and Avangrid, two of the developers, proposed New Bedford as the maintenance hub for wind farms that could eventually power hundreds of thousands of homes. Avangrid’s proposal would also bring a crane manufacturing facility to New Bedford, operated by the Danish company Liftra. It would be the first of its kind in the United States.

Though bids are still subject to negotiation and approval, New Bedford’s waterfront celebrated the announcements and signaled optimism for future employment.

“I think it’s incredibly good news for the port of New Bedford,” said Gordon Carr, executive director of the New Bedford Port Authority. “We’re very pleased with the investment into long-underutilized and brownfield properties.”

Carr said long-lasting jobs in manufacturing and in wind-farm operations and maintenance would make the offshore wind industry a sustainable employer in New Bedford. “The supply chain businesses that you see in more mature ports in Europe will start showing up in New Bedford,” he said. He added that new investment and development is going toward currently “underutilized” properties, meaning that “there’s no displacement of commercial fishing or processing along the waterfront.”

Read the full article at the New Bedford Light

Offshore energy projects in New England will need years to power up

March 30, 2024 — Following more than a year of tumult in the industry that called into question the future of offshore wind in New England, Massachusetts and its southern neighbors on Wednesday got the menu of options for the next phase of clean energy development.

Massachusetts is seeking as much as 3,600 megawatts of offshore wind capacity in its fourth procurement round, its biggest procurement ever. And through a tri-state partnership with Rhode Island and Connecticut, Massachusetts and its neighbors are planning to coordinate their selections for a combined 6,000 MW of offshore wind energy capacity, leading to the possibility of multi-state projects although the newly submitted bids in the aggregate fall short of reaching that 6,000 MW threshold.

The latest round of bids comes after Massachusetts and other states in the Northeast went backwards on offshore wind over the last year and a half. Both projects selected in Massachusetts’ last procurement became much more expensive as inflation took off and the war in Ukraine snarled supply chains, and the developers behind them paid multi-million dollar fines to back out of the contracts they had agreed to. Both projects were re-bid in some form Wednesday, are are expected to come with a higher price to ratepayers.

By Wednesday’s noon deadline, Massachusetts received proposals from three developers who also submitted their proposals for the multi-state solicitation: Vineyard Offshore, Avangrid Renewables and SouthCoast Wind. At their maximum, the projects that were bid to Massachusetts on Wednesday would represent a cumulative 4,270 MW of capacity. The developer Orsted also bid a 1,184 MW project to Rhode Island and Connecticut, making approximately 5,454 MW available for the multi-state effort.

Read the full article at New England Public Media

With inflation stubbornly persistent, US FTC accuses retailers of price-gouging

March 25, 2024 — Sky-high grocery prices – brought about due to supply chain disruptions during the Covid-19 pandemic – are persisting, and retailers may be price-gouging, according to a 22 March U.S. Federal Trade Commission report.

The report, “Feeding America in a Time of Crisis: FTC Staff Report on The United States Grocery Supply Chain and the COVID-19 Pandemic,” calls out the largest retailers for raising prices and limiting competition.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Wind compensation announced, fishermen remain wary

March 25, 2024 — Mass. vessel owners and fishing permit holders can now enroll in a compensation program to cover losses caused by the construction and operations of wind farms. Fishermen who are sharing the waters with Vineyard Wind may be eligible for funds through the Fisheries Compensatory Mitigation Program. The program is through the farm’s developers and offers $19.1 million for Mass. Fishermen and a combined $7.5 million for fishermen from other states who have routinely fished the same area in recent years.

To be eligible, fishermen must show they fished within the project’s lease area for at least three years between 2016 and 2022. The Cape Cod Times shared that though the funds are meant to bring relief to those working on the water already limited by regulations and allowable catch volumes, fishermen have raised many questions and criticism that there isn’t enough funding, the eligibility criteria are too limiting, and the program doesn’t take into account the effects fishermen who work outside of the lease area may experience.

The Vineyard Wind project is under construction 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard and is planned for a nearly 261-square-mile lease area. Activist groups and fishermen have opposed offshore wind development and have insisted that the significant number of whale deaths on the East Coast can be correlated to survey and construction work on energy projects, such as Vineyard Wind.

The New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA) and Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) also have serious questions about how offshore wind activity is connected to the spikes in whale mortality throughout the Atlantic.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman