Saving Seafood

Alaska’s COVID-19 plans for fishing communities are now being put to the test

June 4, 2020 — In a normal fishing season, Dan Martin would fly straight from the Pacific Northwest to the Aleutian Islands, where his pollock trawler, the Commodore, would be waiting for him to take the wheel.

But this year, the veteran skipper is stepping onboard in Seattle, where he, four crew and two federal fisheries observers are taking COVID-19 tests and hoisting a quarantine flag. Then they’ll squeeze onto the vessel for a week-long voyage to Alaska’s biggest fishing port, Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands.

“We might have to eat in shifts,” Martin quipped. “Because I don’t know that we can fit that many people at our galley table.”

There’s no hospital anywhere in the Aleutians, and Dutch Harbor has not yet seen a single confirmed case of COVID-19. Martin says the industry’s biggest fear is bringing the virus in with them.

Read the full story at KTOO

MASSACHUSETTS: Kennedy: Coronavirus aid for fisheries ‘insufficient’

June 4, 2020 — The $28 million in COVID-related federal assistance to help the Massachusetts seafood industry is insufficient “and will not address the economic pain felt throughout the commonwealth,” U.S. Senate candidate Joseph P. Kennedy III stated in a letter to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

Kennedy, who represents the state’s 4th congressional district, blamed the insufficiency on the lack of employment data in the funding methodology used by NOAA Fisheries to distribute the $300 million in federal fisheries assistance to individual states.

In May, NOAA Fisheries, which is part of the Commerce Department, announced Massachusetts will receive $28,004,176, or 9.3% of the $300 million contained for fisheries assistance in the Coronavirus Relief and Economic Security, or CARES, Act.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Alaska eases quarantine protocol as COVID-19 cases rise

June 4, 2020 — Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy released a revised travel protocol on 3 June that gives travelers options to get around the 14-day quarantine period, but the state is experiencing a hike in COVID-19 cases as the summer fishing season ramps up.

Dunleavy and state health officials announced they are waiving the state’s 14-day quarantine period for travelers who test negative for COVID-19 within 72 hours of their flight. The quarantine can also be avoided with a negative test five days before departure and another test upon arrival in Alaska, the document said, or by testing and self-isolating in Anchorage until test results are received. The new travel protocol will go in place Friday, 5 June.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US lawmakers calling for more fishery relief funding and changes in allocation

June 4, 2020 — U.S. lawmakers are continuing the call for more funding for the seafood industry, which has been battered by the COVID-19 crisis. However, the window for such funding may be closing.

States with seafood industries received a collective USD 300 million (EUR 264.2 million) in funding through the CARES Act in March, and officials from the Trump administration announced the allocation splits of those funds last month. However, even before those allocations were announced, elected officials from both parties and fishing sector leaders were saying it would not be enough to cover the damage the coronavirus has wreaked on the industry.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Trump to hold roundtable on commercial fishing while in Maine

June 4, 2020 — President Donald Trump will hold a roundtable discussion with parties involved in the commercial fishing industry during his visit to Maine on Friday, according to a White House official.

The president is slated to come to the Pine Tree State to visit the Puritan Medical Products facility in Guilford, which manufactures medical swabs used in coronavirus testing. The Guilford company is one of the two largest swab manufacturers in the world and is opening a new swab manufacturing facility in Pittsfield this summer to meet the surging demand for swabs.

The company is using $75.5 million in federal funds under the Defense Production Act to open that facility.

The president is expected to discuss regulations and how to expand economic opportunities for the commercial fishing industry, according to the official.

Details of when exactly the visit will take place have not been disclosed.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

David Goethel: Living free and not dying in New Hampshire

June 4, 2020 — I was honored to sit down with NF Highliner and unrelenting fisheries advocate David Goethel recently to talk about the covid pivot and what fishermen are doing to keep their boats running.

“It’s certainly been interesting to watch what’s unfolded this year. First of all of course there’s far less groundfishermen than there used to be. There’s only six of us left in New Hampshire. We had over 100 in 2,000. Of those few people left, the coronavirus situation has put people into a rather unique position of having to move their product.”

Goethel is a longtime member of the Yankee Fishermen’s Co-op, which has downshifted from selling to major wholesalers to the public, primarily.

Read the full opinion piece here

Sen. Murkowski pushes for an additional $1 billion in federal fisheries relief funds

June 3, 2020 — The following was released by The Office of Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK):

Alaska’s fishing industry was allocated $50 million in CARES Act funding in early May to ease financial losses tied to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Commercial and sport fishing businesses that incur more than 35% in losses will be eligible for aid. NOAA Fisheries and The Pacific Marine Fishery Commission will evaluate each entity’s spending plan. According to NOAA, submissions and approvals will “occur on a rolling basis.”

Additional money could be on the way for the fishing industry. Senator Lisa Murkowski said that she is working to add more fisheries funding in the next round of pandemic relief legislation.

“As we think about the impact to our fisheries, $50 million is not going to be sufficient to address the need,” she said. “I have been working with colleagues to urge us in this next round of relief to include $1 billion in fishery assistance funds.”

Murkowski also wants to change language in the second rollout of funding to help individual fishermen access the Paycheck Protection Program. She says the original PPP did not accommodate fishing wages and crew payroll expenses.

“The PPP really didn’t account for the fact that so many of our businesses in Alaska are seasonal,” she said. “When you think about the fisheries in Bristol Bay that’s certainly a seasonal business. It’s the very definition of it. And so we’ve been successful in changing the definition, but now we’re working with treasury to allow for when those funds need to be paid out.”

The House of Representatives passed the $3 trillion HEROES Act May 12. The bill now moves on to the Senate. Murkowski hopes they can negotiate and address some of the shortcomings from the CARES Act.

“We moved this legislation through very, very quickly. In the matter of a couple weeks, and a couple trillion dollars in spending,” she said. “It is not unusual that we didn’t get the legislation right the first time. It’s been frustrating, I know, for many, but we remain pretty vigilant in trying to address the areas where we did not meet the mark, where we underestimated or we just — we built it wrong.”

Alaska and Washington both received most of the $300 million made available nationwide to the fishing industry. Halibut and salmon fishing are currently underway around the state, and Bristol Bay’s salmon fishery kicks off this month.

Stanford experts highlight oceans’ role in solving food insecurity

June 3, 2020 — A key to solving global hunger – which is predicted to intensify during the COVID-19 pandemic – may lie in the ocean. In fact, the ocean could produce up to 75 percent more seafood than it does today, and drive sustainable economic growth, according to Stanford’s Rosamond Naylor and Jim Leape.

Stanford Report spoke with Leape, co-director of Stanford’s Center for Ocean Solutions, and Naylor, the William Wrigley Professor in Earth System Science, about how global food policies can better integrate “blue foods” from marine and freshwater systems, how to address gaps in current thinking, and what world leaders can do to create a healthier, more sustainable food system.

The researchers are part of a major global initiative called the Blue Food Assessment, which is the first comprehensive review of aquatic foods and their roles in the global food system. Naylor will discuss the initiative on June 3 at the Virtual Ocean Dialogues, an online gathering of business, government and public sector leaders who are invested in creating a more resilient ocean.

Read the full story at Stanford News

EU Commissioner: EUR 500 million seafood support top-up will aid sector’s recovery

June 3, 2020 — The additional EUR 500 million (USD 560.3 million) – added to the European Maritime Fisheries Fund (EMFF) last week – will strengthen the recovery and resilience of the E.U.’s fisheries sector as the region’s economy slowly reopens, according to European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans, and Fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevičius.

The additional funding, which is part of the Commission’s Recovery Package, represents an increase of more than 8 percent compared to the budget initially proposed for the EMFF in 2018.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US customer shift to online grocery shopping likely permanent, analysts say

June 3, 2020 — The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed a record number of U.S. consumers to shop online.

According to a new Brick Meets Click/Mercatus Grocery Survey, around 43 million customers shopped online for groceries in the United States in May, or 33 percent of U.S. households. That number is an all-time high, and represents an increase from the previous record of 31 percent set in April.

Read the full story at Seafood Source