September 29, 2020 — Maine is among the latest states have had CARES Act spend-plans approved by NOAA, bringing the current total of states with approved plans to 12 as of 29 September.
Maine – along with Alabama, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Virginia – have all had spend plans approved and can now begin the application process for fishery participants. The states join California, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Oregon, and South Carolina.
September 25, 2020 — The Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources’ Marine Resources Division announced this week that it is currently accepting applications for its CARES Act relief program for fishery-related businesses.
The program was established to provide financial relief for losses suffered by the state’s marine fishing industry due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For more information about the program, visit this website.
Congress awarded $3.2 million of CARES Act money to the state of Alabama to address financial losses caused by the pandemic that occurred in the state’s seafood industry between March 1 and May 31, 2020.
September 17, 2020 — Louisiana’s commercial fishermen are struggling during the coronavirus pandemic, but they now have the option to apply for assistance from the CARES Act.
WAFB’s Breanne Bizette spoke with seafood businesses about how demand for the product has gone down.
Since the start of the pandemic, fewer people are eating out at local seafood restaurants. Restaurants are restricted on how many people can dine at once, meaning fewer people are eating those delicious seafood platters.
Fishermen who sell their catch to restaurants are feeling the pressure.
“I think the price has to come down because if you don’t have sales you can’t just keep a price at a level that there’s no sale for,” says Al Sunseri who is the co-owner of P&J’s Oyster Company.
September 16, 2020 — Whatever the relationship between China and the United States — particularly the lobster industry — may be, Maine lobstermen are certainly living in interesting times.
Last week, a scant two months before the upcoming presidential election, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that it would soon release some $530 million appropriated by Congress last March under the CARES Act to assist the U.S. seafood industry and fishermen damaged by retaliatory tariffs. Those tariffs have been imposed primarily by China and the European Union on imports of U.S. live and processed seafood.
Payments from the Seafood Trade Relief Program vary by species and are based on each fisherman’s 2019 landings multiplied by an amount established by the USDA. For lobstermen, the multiplier is 50 cents per pound. Total payments to Maine lobstermen based on 2019 landings figures could reach $50 million.
Herring fishermen get 4 cents per pound. Salmon farmers get 16 cents per pound. The total payment is limited to $250,000 to any one fisherman or entity. Some fishermen and most aquaculturists operate as small business corporations or limited liability companies, for all species combined, and payments are subject to federal and state income tax.
That limit means nothing to the shellfish farmers who grow primarily oysters, mussels, hardshell clams and scallops in Maine. They get nothing, presumably because exports of those species, if any, were not damaged by tariffs.
September 16, 2020 — The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries will discuss and answer questions about the $14.6 million in federal funding it has received to help the state’s fishing community suffering financially because of the COVID-19 pandemic during its bi-monthly live social media series “Conservation Conversations.”
The program will highlight information on applications and qualification issues for the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act benefits. LDWF began accepting applications for the funds on Monday, September 14.
“Conservation Conversations” will be available on Facebook, live at noon, Wednesday, September 16, by visiting: www.facebook.com/ldwffb/live_videos, according to LDWF. Viewers can submit questions about the session’s topic in real-time.
September 15, 2020 — Here’s a good story out of the South: As you might imagine fishermen in Louisiana and along the Gulf of Mexico have had a terrible time of it through the late summer, with tropical storms and hurricanes tearing up the landscape, disrupting fishing and adding to the general misery of life in the time of pandemic.
In North Carolina, the North Carolina Fisheries Association and True North Seafood decided to help their fishing friends in Louisiana by sending a truckload of supplies down to the bayou.
“We received more than 20,000 pounds of ice, fish and cleaning supplies,” Frank Randol, treasurer of the Gulf Seafood Foundation and owner of Randol’s Seafood, told Gulf Seafood News. “We are in the process of working with the United Way, Second Harvest Food Bank and others to get these supplies into the hands of those that need it the most. We need to keep the attention focused on the damage in the Gulf, and how it has affected our fishermen because they not only feed their families, but their communities and whole country.”
You may have noticed that we’ve had a slew of stories in the past few weeks on the various federal and state programs to financially assist fishermen and others in the seafood industry that have been crushed economically by the ongoing pandemic or had markets disappear because of retaliatory trade tariffs from U.S. trade partners. It’s a pretty confusing landscape right now, so we hope we helped clear up some of the details.
Last week, we wrote that the state Division of Marine Fisheries had finally mailed out the applications to commercial fishermen for funds allocated by Congress in the CARES Act. The state got $28 million in all to help mitigate the economic damage to its seafood industry from the COVID-19 pandemic, and commercial fishermen will split $11.8 million of that haul.
We mentioned the completed applications are due Oct. 10. What we didn’t mention — because the information was not available until after the story went to press — was when the successful applicants might expect to see their slice of the loot. Now we know.
September 15, 2020 — National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries has approved the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries’ spending plan for federal coronavirus fisheries assistance.
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security, or CARES, Act is a more than $2 trillion economic relief package. The next step is for the state to be notified by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission that the $5.4 million has been awarded.
The Marine Fisheries spending plan details how the funding will be disbursed through direct payments to eligible commercial fishermen, charter businesses, seafood dealers and processors and qualified marine aquaculture operations.
The division was notified May 7 that NOAA Fisheries had allocated $5.4 million in CARES Act fisheries assistance to North Carolina. Receipt of the funding, which passes through the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, was contingent on federal approval of the spending plan, which was received Sept. 9.
September 14, 2020 — The R.I. Department of Environmental Management on Friday said it will begin accepting applications for a total of $3.1 million available for fisheries assistance starting Sept. 14.
The funds come from the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. Applicants can include commercial harvesters, commercial aquaculturists, seafood processors and dealers, for-hire vessels and business owners.
Eligible applicants must have incurred, as a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic, a documented fishery-related loss in revenue between March and May 2020 greater than 35% to related average revenue earned in the same timespan over the previous five years, or applicable years in operation.
September 14, 2020 — Massachusetts commercial fishermen should soon be receiving their applications for the $11.8 million in federal fishery assistance funds to help offset economic damage to the industry from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The state Division of Marine Fisheries said it began sending out the applications on Wednesday to commercial fishermen at the addresses listed on their DMF-issued permits. Completed applications and appeals must be postmarked no later than Oct. 10.
The $11.8 million set aside for commercial harvesters is part of the $28 million Congress allocated to the Massachusetts seafood industry in March in the $300 million CARES Act to mitigate the financial woes caused by the unrelenting pandemic.
September 11, 2020 — Georgia is ready to distribute nearly $2 million in funds to commercial fishermen, wholesale dealers, and others in the seafood industry who have been financially impacted by the coronavirus.
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, also known as the CARES Act, was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump on March 27. The CARES Act included $300 million in fisheries assistance funding, but it wasn’t until May that NOAA even released a breakdown of the funds by state, tribe and territory. With growing frustration from those affected by the pandemic, states have been working out how to distribute the federal relief aid. As SeafoodNews confirmed last month, Massachusetts announced that they were finally able to move forward with dispersing the money. And now, it seems like Georgia is ready to join them.