Saving Seafood

Kim Gorton calls on Congress to pass another stimulus for small businesses in seafood, foodservice

September 30, 2020 — Bad debt is plaguing the U.S. seafood industry, and the only cure is another federal stimulus package. That was the message Kim Gorton delivered Wednesday, 30 September, to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Small Business.

Gorton, the president and CEO of Slade Gorton and a board member of the National Fisheries Institute, the U.S. seafood industry’s primary trade body, told the panel seafood industry businesses like her family’s have a combined USD 2.2 billion (EUR 1.9 billion) in bad debt and other foodservice companies carry about USD 10 billion (EUR 8.53 billion) in bad debt.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Huffman hosts New England listening session to discuss federal fisheries policy

September 30, 2020 — U.S. Representative Jared Huffman (D-California) held the latest in a series of listening sessions online on 28 September in order to gauge stakeholder’s thoughts on fisheries management, particularly the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

Huffman, the chair of the House Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife, has been hosting listening sessions featuring local stakeholder groups from various regions across the country. Originally intended to be in-person visits to parts of the U.S., all sessions have been taking place remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Huffman Resumes Nationwide Listening Tour

September 30, 2020 — The following was released by The Office of Congressman Jared Huffman (D-CA):

On Monday, Congressman Jared Huffman (CA-02), Chair of the House Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife, hosted the latest session on his nationwide fisheries listening tour for a discussion on federal fisheries policy in the context of the New England fishery management region. Huffman’s listening tour has previously visited Hawaii, the Gulf Coast, Florida, Seattle, Maryland, San Francisco, and Eureka, California.

“New England has a long and storied history of fishing, and communities in this region depend on healthy oceans and coasts,” said Rep. Huffman. “There are many challenges facing the fishing industry today; as we all know the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the entire country, but the fishing industry has been hit particularly hard. The New England region is also seeing some of the most drastic ocean warming on the planet. This was an important conversation about how we can support fisheries through science and sustainability as they meet these crises head-on.”

Representative Huffman heard from a range of stakeholders, including fishermen, advocates, scientists, and members of the public, who gave feedback on the current state of fisheries management under the Magnuson-Stevens Act and what they hope to see in future federal fisheries policy. Rep. Huffman was joined by Representatives Seth Moulton (MA-06), Chellie Pingree (ME-01), Ed Case (HI-01), Joe Courtney (CT-02), Bill Keating (MA-09), and a video appearance by Senator Ed Markey (MA).

The ideas Huffman receives from this listening tour, and from other stakeholder outreach that is already underway, will inform his introduction of a reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the primary law governing fisheries management in U.S. federal waters.

More detail on Huffman’s listening tour, which was first announced in July 2019, can be found here.

Click the following links to watch a recording of Monday’s event on Facebook or Youtube.

Maine’s CARES Act spend plan acknowledges now-approved aid isn’t enough

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.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NEFMC’s increased monitoring consideration raises concerns among fishermen

September 29, 2020 — The New England Fishery Management Council is considering the adoption of a new rule that would require the expansion of current monitoring mandates.

The new rulemaking, called Groundfish Monitoring Amendment 23, has been in process for over two years and is intended to overhaul the way groundfish monitoring takes place. The council had been seeking comments on the new amendment over the summer, and is now considering the implementation of the new rules.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Outsiders in Alaska sparked COVID-19 fears and drove up case counts. Now they’re barely a blip.

September 28, 2020 — Alaskans eyed the coming of summer’s fishing, resource and tourist seasons warily.

The influx of outsiders brought new risks of the spread of COVID-19 to a state that had so far escaped the deadly surges overfilling emergency rooms in other places.

Daily coronavirus case counts for people from out of state, dubbed “nonresidents” in state data, rose quickly by July. On some days, they accounted for a quarter or a third of all the new reported infections.

Now the number of out-of-state workers and visitors with confirmed COVID-19 cases has dropped to zero some days, single digits most others.

The reason is pretty simple.

By early September, the tourists and thousands of fishing industry workers who made up the bulk of Alaska’s nonresident population all but disappeared.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

Maine lobster business salvaged its summer despite pandemic

September 28, 2020 — Maine’s lobster fishermen braced for a difficult summer this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, but then the unexpected happened. They kept catching lobsters, and people kept buying them.

The pandemic has posed significant challenges for the state’s lobster fishery, which is the nation’s largest, but members of the industry reported a steady catch and reasonable prices at the docks. Prices for consumers and wholesalers were low in the early part of the summer but picked up in August to be about on par with a typical summer.

The Maine lobster industry is in the midst of a multiyear boom, and fishermen have caught more than 100 million pounds (45,360,000 kilograms) for a record nine years in a row.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

OREGON: New testing ups Pacific Seafood COVID-19 count to 94 workers

September 28, 2020 — The results of testing completed at the end of last week show the current coronavirus outbreak among workers at  processing plant in Warrenton, Oregon, U.S.A. have bumped the count of affected employees to 94, up from the 77 announced last week.

However, the company’s most recent round of testing, conducted on Thursday and Friday, 24 and 25 September, revealed only five positive COVID-19 tests out of 106 workers, with one test result still pending.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US institutional foodservice expected to recover in 2023

September 28, 2020 — In harsh news for seafood suppliers and distributors, the United States institutional foodservice sector is not expected to recover until 2023.

The new Rabobank projection is based on current trends and assumes no major resurgence in U.S. COVID-19 cases, which could alter projections, according to Amit Sharma, executive director of food and foodservice for Rabobank.

Read the full story at Seafood Source