June 1, 2020 — For the fifth time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is allowing flexibility in food labeling.
In the agency’s new guidance, the FDA said that food manufacturers making minor formulation and ingredient changes to their products due to scarcity of ingredients related to COVID-19 do not have to make corresponding changes to their labeling.
June 1, 2020 — Like so many other businesses, the core business of major U.S. seafood distributors has been upended by the COVID-19 pandemic.
We all know how restaurants, hotels and casinos, and amusement parks shut down. And foodservice seafood sales have fallen anywhere from 30% to 98%, depending on the type of venue and offering.
May 29, 2020 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:
Leaders of the nation’s eight Regional Fishery Management Councils concluded the first of their biannual meetings in 2020 today by videoconference. The Council Coordination Committee (CCC) meeting provides the Councils and heads of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS, also known as NOAA Fisheries) an opportunity to discuss issues relevant to all of the Councils. The meeting is open to the public. Nearly 200 persons attended the two-day meeting. Among the top concerns of the CCC were impacts of COVID-19 on the nation’s fisheries.
The CCC expressed its appreciation to Chris Oliver, NOAA Assistant Administrator for Fisheries, for his unwavering support of fishing-related industries and his efforts to work with the President and his administration on the Executive Order (EO) Promoting American Seafood Competitiveness and Economic Growth. The EO asked the Councils to identify and make recommendations regarding regulatory burdens on domestic fisheries. In advance of individual Council recommendations regarding the EO, the CCC will send a letter to Secretary of Commerce Wilbur L. Ross Jr. collectively reiterating their recommendation to remove existing monument fishing prohibitions and to restore authority over fisheries throughout the U.S. exclusive economic zone (EEZ), including marine national monument waters, to the Councils and the Department of Commerce under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA).
The CCC noted that the CARES Act included $300 million to address impacts of COVID-19 on the nation’s fisheries. It recommended, if additional funds are provided to mitigate the impacts on the industry, that distribution of those funds should take into account the use of other relief programs, such as those offered through the Small Business Administration, US Department of Agriculture and Paycheck Protection Program. The CCC said, as a general principle, entities that receive support from other programs should be given a lower priority than those that do not. It also said funding allocations should consider loss directly related to COVID-19.
“The biggest impact to US commercial fisheries in the Western Pacific Region and our ability to provide food to the nation is our inability to fish in 83 percent of the US EEZ waters around Hawaii and 52 percent of the US EEZ in our region due principally to marine national monument fishing restrictions,” noted Taotasi Archie Soliai, chair of the Western Pacific Council, which hosted the meeting.
Francisco (Cisco) Werner, PhD, NOAA Fisheries chief science advisor and director of its Scientific Programs, reported that NOAA has cancelled approximately 55 surveys (includes multiple legs of individual surveys), involving NOAA vessels, partner vessels (e.g., academia, states, etc.) and commercial charters. To date, these surveys account for approximately 1,380 lost planned days-at-sea (DAS) between March 20 and July 20, 2020, due to COVID-19.
The CCC requested that NMFS provide more information on its plans and strategies to deal with the delays in the NOAA ship and chartered surveys and on any alternative use of the unused portion of NMFS funds allocated for surveys and mission DAS for FY2020.
Offshore wind energy projects concerned several Councils. The CCC discussed the need for a process for Councils to weigh-in on and verify impacts of wind energy projects to fisheries in their region. It was noted that, although NMFS efforts are largely focused on assessing impacts, the New England and Mid-Atlantic Councils have not had much response to their recommendations to minimize those impacts through their proposals on where and how the turbines should be placed in the ocean. The Western Pacific Council expressed concern that offshore wind areas would take away fishing grounds and act as fish aggregating devices and could affect seasonal migrations of fish and attract juvenile fish and protected species. It was also concerned about the impacts from undersea cables on benthic habitats and bottom substrate. The Pacific Council had concerns about the use of short data sets not reflecting the expected effort patterns in fisheries that are being rebuilt and will be reopened soon.
The CCC made several additional recommendations to better coordinate Council and NMFS actions, including the following among others:
The CCC approved a habitat partner engagement letter and sending it. The CCC further approved conducting a Fisheries Science Center Engagement Webinar.
The CCC expressed concern that NMFS guidance on data poor stocks and alternative management approaches may not provide adequate guidance on MSA National Standard 1 to resolve conflicts that arise between scientific advice and the constraints imposed by current laws and policies. It was also concerned that the guidance may not adequately address the need for status determination criteria for model-resistant stocks.
The CCC supported the recognition of functional equivalency in the proposed National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) procedure revision. It believed that MSA actions fulfill NEPA requirements because the development of fishery actions is inherently an environmental review process and provide ample opportunities for public review. The CCC said it looked forward to working with NMFS and the White House Council on Environmental Quality to develop agency guidance for determining functional equivalence and implementing the functional equivalency provision. It encouraged NMFS to initiate the process for applying the provision to MSA actions as soon as possible, in coordination with the Councils.
For more information on the CCC meeting, go to http://www.fisherycouncils.org/ccc-meetings/may-2020.
May 29, 2020 — Pacific Fisheries officials, on 21 May, extended a suspension of 100 percent observer coverage requirements on all purse-seiners fishing in the waters of member-nations to 31 July.
The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC), in a circular memo, endorsed the extension of the measure, stating that the “temporary suspension will apply to new trips after a vessel operator has met any requirement for repatriation of observers currently onboard a vessel.”
May 29, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
NOAA Fisheries is extending the waiver granted to vessels with Greater Atlantic Region fishing permits to carry human observers or at-sea monitors through June 30, 2020. This action is authorized by 50 CFR 648.11, which provides the Greater Atlantic Regional Administrator authority to waive observer requirements, and is also consistent with the criteria described in the agency’s emergency rule on observer waivers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
We intend to begin redeploying observers and at-sea monitors on vessels fishing in northeast fisheries on July 1. During the month of June, we will continue to work with regional observer and at-sea monitoring service providers to finalize their observer redeployment plans, conduct outreach with industry, and finalize internal programs and policies that will support the safe and effective redeployment of observers and at-sea monitors in the region.
Observers and at-sea monitors are an essential component of commercial fishing operations and provide critical information that is necessary to keep fisheries open and to provide sustainable seafood to our nation during this time. We will continue to monitor all local public health notifications, as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for updates. We are committed to protecting the public health and ensuring the safety of fishermen, observers, and others, while fulfilling our mission to maintain our nation’s seafood supply and conserving marine life.
As has been done throughout the rest of the country, it is the intent of NOAA Fisheries to begin redeploying observers as soon as it is safe and appropriate to do so. While we intend to begin redeploying observers on July 1, we recognize that this public health crisis continues to evolve and changing conditions may warrant re-evaluating these plans. Should our plans regarding re-deploying observers and at-sea monitors change, we will announce any changes as soon as practicable.
May 29, 2020 — Archie Soliai was supposed to be leading a meeting at the Turtle Bay Resort on Oahu’s North Shore this week, but instead he appeared on a computer screen with a pixelated view of Pago Pago in American Samoa in the background.
Soliai is the chairman of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, a quasi-governmental federal agency that oversees fish stocks in U.S. waters from Hawaii to the Pacific Island territories of American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam.
He works for the StarKist Samoa tuna cannery, and over the course of two days hosted a meeting of the nation’s premier fisheries managers via a WebEx video conference to discuss how commercial fishermen could rebound from the coronavirus outbreak that so far has killed more than 101,000 people in the U.S. and 358,000 worldwide.
May 28, 2020 — The Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries will not be able to operate its annual “lunch and learn” series at its facility in Stonington this summer as normal. With a move to virtual meetings, the center has the ability to reach more people.
It is a series folks came to look forward to in the summer. The Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries has been inviting around 40 people to its facility on the last Friday of the month in the summer, bag lunch in hand, to learn about different types of fisherman. This year it cannot happen in person, at least in the early summer, due to COVID-19 safety measures.
“Everything’s changed and we’re unable to open up quite yet to have in person experience, so everyone’s getting used to webinars,” said MCFC president Paul Anderson.
The Center’s summer talk series will go virtual in 2020, starting this Friday, May 29.
As “lunch and learn” starts on Zoom, it is a chance for more people to learn about the coastal fishing industry.
May 28, 2020 — In the early days of the coronavirus shut-downs, commercial fishermen were among those gut-punched by the impacts of an economy screeched to a halt.
Fishermen were told they could keep working, and the fish they sought were plentiful, but the value of fish at markets reeling from the forced closures of tens of thousands of restaurants and people fleeing into their homes was minimal.
But fishermen say that as the pandemic has settled into the habits of humans across the world, where one window of opportunity has closed, others have opened and helped the industry keep itself … well, afloat.
They have been buoyed by a steep drop in the amount of seafood being imported to the U.S. from other countries — the practice itself a plague that many fishermen said the country needs to rid it self of — and a populace that has still eagerly sought out seafood to eat while in quarantine.
With restaurants either closed or doing a fraction of their usual business, fishermen have relied more on selling to retail seafood markets, or at retail farmers markets, selling fish off the back of their boats or pickups and, in some cases, door-to-door deliveries, to peddle their catch.
May 28, 2020 — The seafood industry relies heavily on restaurants and retail stores for the majority of sales. With restaurant closures and coronavirus shelter-in-place orders, the seafood industry has been hit hard. The sudden drop in demand has forced fishers and fish farmers to get creative in their methods, turning to direct sales to stay afloat. A new tool through the University of Washington Sustainable Fisheries initiative has compiled information about where to find seafood in the form of a map that can be used to easily track down local, sustainable catch for delivery or direct sales.
The goal of the map is to support small seafood businesses by making their transition to direct sales just a little bit easier. Generally a supplier (fishing boat or farm) will deal with processors and distributors to sell their fish, and customers will purchase through a restaurant or grocery store.
Now that direct sales are the only option, the industry is scrambling to keep up and adapt to a new way of business and the map is meant to shoulder some of the burden. “They’re bringing in people from sales to pack boxes, the last thing they should have to worry about is finding new markets,” says Jack Cheney; a senior project manager at seafood sustainability organization FishWise, and contributor for Sustainable Fisheries UW, a grant-funded website dedicated to explaining the science of seafood, “this is the least we can do to try and promote them in some small way.”
May 28, 2020 — The coronavirus has delivered a large blow to Vietnam’s pangasius sector, which was already hurting before the pandemic.
Vietnam has not recorded any COVID-19 deaths through the crisis, and the entire country has only seen around 300 cases of the disease due to the extensive preventative measures it took beginning in January. But while most of social and economic activities in Vietnam have been brought back to a “new normal” since late April, disruptions in foreign markets, tangled supply chains, and suppressed demand have hurt its seafood export sector, upon which the country’s pangasius traders depend heavily.