Saving Seafood

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

Fishers urged to register for $1M given for Guam fisheries

June 2, 2020 — Of $300 million set aside from the CARES Act for fisheries throughout the U.S. and territories, Guam will be receiving $1 million.

The Guam Department of Agriculture’s Division of Aquatic and Wildlife Resources is in communication with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration working on guidelines for the money.

Once the guidelines are developed, the money will be given to a fisheries commission that will oversee the dispersal of the money to individual fishers on Guam, according to the agency. That commission will work with the Agriculture division to develop a plan for Guam and in anticipation of this, the division has already written a draft plan based on general guidelines already provided and will submit this for approval once the guidelines are ready.

Read the full story at KUAM

US pollock, haddock harvesters threatened by advice against seafood aid double dipping

June 2, 2020 — Any fisheries that’ve benefited from other relief efforts should get lower priority when it comes to any future benefits awarded to the seafood industry, the president Donald Trump administration’s top fishery policy advisors have recommended.

While the advice doesn’t appear to interfere with the $300 million awarded the seafood industry as part of the earlier passed $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, it threatens other assistance to the Alaska pollock and New England groundfish fisheries as well as US catfish farmers, one longtime fishing industry professional argues.

Also, it doesn’t mesh with lawmakers’ original intent, the source maintains.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

US restaurant sector receives some help, but trade group says more is needed

June 2, 2020 — Representatives of the Independent Restaurant Coalition (IRC) recently met with U.S. President Donald Trump and key administration officials to make their case for a proposed USD 120 billion (EUR 107 billion) stabilization fund for the U.S. restaurant industry.

More government relief is needed for the sector, which has struggled through lockdowns over the past two months that have effectively closed most U.S. restaurants to dine-in customers, the trade group told the president, according to a press release.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Autonomous Vehicles Help Scientists Estimate Fish Abundance While Protecting Human Health and Safety

June 2, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Scientists are capitalizing on existing technological capabilities and partnerships to collect fisheries data. This will help fill the information gap resulting from the cancellation of FY20 ship-based surveys due to the COVID-19 pandemic. NOAA Fisheries plans to use autonomous surface vehicles to collect some critically needed data to support management of the nation’s largest commercial fishery for Alaska pollock.

“Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures,” said Alex De Robertis, NOAA Fisheries fisheries biologist and project lead for the Alaska Fisheries Science Center. “We knew there was a possibility that surveys may be cancelled this year, so we worked on a contingency plan to collect some data just in case. We were able to capitalize on our previous experience working closely with Saildrone and NOAA Research’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory to get things off the ground quickly.”

This effort supports NOAA’s broader strategy to expand the use of emerging science and technologies including unmanned systems, artificial intelligence, and ‘omics to advance ocean research. NOAA released its strategy in February.

“The Alaska Fisheries Science Center has been engaged in research and development efforts to test new technologies to both improve our operating efficiencies and enable us to quickly respond when situations like this arise,” said Robert Foy, Alaska Fisheries Science Center Director. “Providing the best available science to support management decisions is at the heart of our mission to ensure the health of marine ecosystems while supporting sustainable commercial and recreational fisheries and strong local economies.”

Read the full release here