Saving Seafood

Keep fishermen fishing: Food producers are essential to our health and survival

March 23, 2020 — Food production and delivery are crucial systems for society. The covid-19 virus is causing severe economic and social disruptions worldwide. The president has made it clear to the U.S. population that grocery stores and pharmacies will remain open. However fishermen, farmers and processors need to be able to continue their work to provide consumer with food.
Seemingly without a plan, parts of the world are demobilizing the food supply chain when they should be trying to secure and protect it.

Every day we learn more that fishermen in the United States and in some European countries are increasingly unable to sell their products. These harvesters have come to the docks with fresh food and there are either no buyers, or price offers are so low that fishermen won’t return to sea do a second trip.

With the information we have thus far, the best way to combat covid-19 is to keep immune systems healthy. Everyone needs nutritious food to maintain their underlying health. Seafood is a vital part of a healthy diet. Consumers expect to go to the store to find milk for their coffee and spinach for a salad. Not surprisingly, if dairy and market farmers stop farming, or a seafood processor stops processing, or a shipping company stops driving, there will be nothing left in stores.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Rough week for lobster, fishing industries

March 23, 2020 — We here at FishOn are just as exhausted as everyone else by this otherworldly health crisis that has us tenaciously in its grip. We’re sick of staying indoors. We’re sick of not having any sports to watch. We long to go to the Sawyer Free Library and Pratty’s — which are far more similar than you think. And just once more, we’d like to touch our face. Or somebody’s.

But we are healthy, as are those around us. So we stay the course because we are New Englanders and we give in to nothing.

Still, it was a tough week hereabouts for our fishermen in both the lobster and groundfish fisheries.

As you may have read in the pages of the Gloucester Daily Times and online at gloucestertimes.com, some of the the restrictions enacted to try to halt the spread of the novel coronavirus – principally the shuttering of all in-situ dining at Massachusetts restaurants and travel restrictions that have made it difficult to move product around – have crushed the fishermen.

In the lobster fishery, already high inventory coupled with the loss of the restaurant trade – where the great preponderance of live lobsters are consumed – sent prices down into the root cellar and rocked everyone from harvesters to dealers and processors.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Mills requests federal assistance for Maine’s seafood industry

March 23, 2020 — Gov. Janet Mills is asking President Trump for help to support Maine’s fishing industry.

In a letter to the president Friday, Mills pointed to a collapse of the markets for seafood both locally and globally due to the COVID-19 pandemic and asked the administration to consider direct financial assistance, subsidies, operating loans or loan deferment, or tweaking existing programs to make them more accessible to fishing and seafood businesses.

“In the short-term, harvesters have only limited opportunities within their communities to sell small quantities of product in hopes to earn just enough money to buy weekly necessities,” wrote Mills, calling the men and women who fish for lobster, herring, groundfish and shellfish “the very backbone of our rural coastal economy.”

In the long term, Mills said, “it is clear that the collapse of the international and larger domestic markets will devastate Maine’s commercial fisheries.”

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Update: New Deadline and Submission Details for the 2020 Marine Endangered Species Art Contest

March 23, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Due to the recent developments of the COVID-19 virus pandemic, we understand that several of the schools across the nation are currently closed. Our office in Gloucester, Massachusetts also has restricted access to the general public and we have been encouraged to work from home.

Because we are not in the building, and we do not know when we will return, we can no longer accept any physical art entries this year. However, to keep the contest going and to encourage students to learn about marine endangered species while they are home, we will gladly accept any electronic pictures or scans of the students’ artwork for this year’s contest!

All students have to do is take a picture or scan their artwork and email it to edith.carson-supino@noaa.gov by no later than April 24. The revised art contest rules are located on our 2020 Marine Endangered Species Art Contest  webpage.

Artwork should highlight one or more marine endangered or threatened species from the New England/Mid-Atlantic region. Text highlighting why the animals are important and what people can do to protect them may also be included. Younger students, in grades K-2, who may not understand the threats to endangered species (i.e., pollution, fishing, etc.) are encouraged to portray the animals in their natural habitat instead.

Read the full release here

NOAA waives some observer requirements as COVID-19 concerns mount

March 23, 2020 — NOAA Fisheries announced on 20 March that it is waiving observer requirements for vessels with Northeast fishing permits until 4 April, with the new waiver being evaluated weekly as the COVID-19 outbreak continues.

The announcement comes as multiple fisheries in the Northeast U.S. are grappling with the impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak, which range from the aforementioned switch to no longer requiring observers to a the delay of fishing seasons.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Distributors and suppliers shifting focus to retail as restaurant profits plunge

March 23, 2020 — The reaction from U.S. consumers to the COVID-19 pandemic has scrambled how Americans are buying seafood. In response, U.S. foodservice distributors and seafood suppliers are shifting their focus away from a shriveling restaurant scene and putting more focus on supplying retailers.

As evidence of how badly restaurants have been hit by a crisis that has seen many restaurants forced to shift to take-out or close entirely, a number of major restaurant chains have announced significantly decreased earnings.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Exports crashing, Norway vows to maintain seafood supply

March 23, 2020 — Seafood producers in Norway, spanning both the wild-capture fisheries and aquaculture sectors, will strive to maintain supplies to domestic and overseas markets, with borders and air freight routes remaining open for the transport of goods, the country’s government has said.

Norway has taken drastic steps to halt the spread of COVID-19, with schools, cinemas, restaurants and bars told to close and citizens encouraged to stay at home as much as possible. However, the Norwegian Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Fisheries issued a formal letter on 14 March identifying the value chain supporting food production and delivery as critical functions to society.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

UK supermarkets given permission to join forces, merge supply chains

March 23, 2020 — U.K. supermarket chains can for the first time work together and will be allowed to share distribution networks, stock level data, staff, and other important resources after the government temporarily relaxed elements of competition law to enable food to reach stores during the coronavirus crisis.

Drivers’ hours have also been relaxed to enable retailers to get more food to outlets, while plastic bag charges for online purchases have been stopped to speed up deliveries.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

At sea during pandemic, fishermen return to stormy times

March 23, 2020 — The coronavirus literally traveled over them from Asia to California while they were on the high seas catching tuna.

They were as safe as anyone from the virus doing one of the most dangerous jobs, and now? Fishermen are returning home to California to find a state all but shuttered and nowhere to sell their catch.

A handful of tuna boats filled with tens of thousands of pounds of fish are now floating off San Diego’s coast as they scramble to find customers. Many wholesalers stopped buying as restaurants were ordered closed except for takeout.

San Diego, once known as the tuna capital of the world, boasts a thriving industry that sells primarily to wholesale buyers and restaurants.

Many are third-generation fishermen, like Nick Haworth. He pulled up his vessel to a dock in downtown San Diego with 30,000 pounds (13,600 kilograms) of big eye tuna and opah. It was selling for $10 a pound to the public, a third of the market price.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at NJNN

Chesapeake crab industry remains crippled by visa shortage, coronavirus

March 20, 2020 — Responding to employers’ calls, including those of crab meat processing companies in Virginia and Maryland, the federal government announced March 5 that it would release an additional 35,000 temporary visas for foreign workers.

That still may not be enough to quench the Chesapeake Bay seafood houses’ demand for temporary workers, according to the trade group that represents the industry. And they may still arrive too late to help much or perhaps get stuck on the other side of the border, as the United States today closed its Mexican border for unessential travel because of coronavirus concerns.

Several seafood company owners and watermen had implored the Trump administration to issue 64,000 more visas, the cap set by Congress.

Jack Brooks, co-owner of J.M. Clayton Seafood Co. in Cambridge, MD, and president of the Chesapeake Bay Seafood Industries Association, said he expects a worker shortfall, despite the government’s action.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal