Saving Seafood

Blue Harvest to supply $4.4 million in seafood for schools, food banks

September 25, 2020 — The U.S. Department of Agriculture is buying more than $4.4 million in Northeast groundfish from Blue Harvest Fisheries, which will process the products for distribution to schools and food banks across the country.

The $4,425,480 purchase award from the USDA Commodity Procurement Program to will buy haddock, ocean perch and Atlantic pollock, with deliveries from the Blue Harvest facility in New Bedford, Mass., to begin Oct. 1 through Dec. 31.

It’s the first time in decades that East Coast seafood has been included in the commodities program, which buys farm products for distribution to institutions, nonprofit groups and needy households.

“Given the uncertainties surrounding the seafood market during the ongoing pandemic, this order will help ensure that the groundfish industry at the New Bedford waterfront can continue working, while providing food security for those who need it most,” Blue Harvest CEO Keith Decker said in a prepared statement announcing the purchase.

Company officials credited the Trump administration and Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue for bringing East Coast fisheries in the program. They thanked members of the Massachusetts Congressional delegation, Sens. Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren and Reps. William Keating and Seth Moulton, all D-Mass., who in May asked Perdue to include East Coast seafood when making purchase agreements funded by the special Coronavirus Food Assistance Program and the USDA’s longstanding Section 32 program.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Blue Harvest Fisheries scores $4.4 million groundfish contract from US government

September 23, 2020 — Blue Harvest Fisheries has been granted a $4.4 million (€5.9 million) award from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to supply a total of 115,200 cases of frozen haddock, ocean perch and Atlantic pollock to child nutrition and other related food assistance programs around the United States.

Deliveries will start on Oct. 1 and run through Dec. 31.

All of the fish utilized for the program will be harvested by American-flagged vessels from Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)-certified fisheries in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank, according to the company.

The products will be processed at Blue Harvest’s facility in New Bedford, Massachusetts, before being distributed to recipients nationwide.

Read the full story at IntraFish

NOAA Fisheries Sets 2020 Gulf of Maine Cod and Haddock Recreational Regulations in the Gulf of Maine

August 13, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries is setting Gulf of Maine (GOM) cod and haddock recreational measures for 2020.

The recreational fishery for GOM cod and haddock is managed under the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan (FMP). The FMP includes a proactive recreational accountability measure, which allows the Regional Administrator, in consultation with the New England Fishery Management Council, to develop recreational management measures for the fishing year to ensure that the recreational sub-annual catch limits (ACLs) are achieved, but not exceeded. We project that current measures for GOM cod and haddock can be liberalized somewhat without the 2020 recreational fishery’s sub-ACLs being exceeded.

After consultation with the Council, we are making changes to Gulf of Maine cod and haddock management measures as shown in the table below:

Read the interim final rule as filed in the Federal Register and our bulletin.

Read the full release here

USTR extends tariff exclusions for some seafood products, others will face tariffs again

August 10, 2020 — The United States Trade Representative has released a list of products shipped from China that will receive an extension of tariff exclusions, with several seafood items on the list.

The exclusion extensions apply to several seafood products shipped from China, and allows those products to continue avoiding a 25 percent tariff. The product exclusions will continue to retroactively apply as of 24 September, 2018, and were set to expire on 7 August before the extension which came on the last day before those products would be back under the tariff program.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Northeast Groundfish Retail sales recovering, but prices stay down

August 5, 2020 — “Well, we’ve had an interesting first part of the fishing year,” says Bert Jongerden, general manager of the Portland Fish Exchange on Maine’s waterfront. “Prices have been very weak — I’m surprised by how much the lack of restaurant markets is impacting the pricing of groundfish.”

Generally, Jongerden notes, “a groundfish trawler averages around $2 a pound. But, right now, trawlers are getting around $1.25 to 1.30 a pound. It’s about 65 percent off this year, compared to last year.” Amid the continuing covid-19 closures, supermarket retail has been steadier, but it hasn’t made up for restaurant demand.

As New York City markets are beginning to open back up, “pollock, haddock and hake are moving along pretty well, but at reduced prices while flatfish like dabs, grey sole and monk tails are weak,” says Jongerden.

It’s been challenging to find markets for flatfish, which are typically popular in restaurants as full-plate fish. Jongerden says challenges for flatfish markets are compounded by the fact that processors along the northeast coast are having difficulty getting flatfish cut and processed.

“Finding cutters was challenging before covid-19 hit, but the pandemic has exacerbated things,” he says. “Processors have to be careful now, using screens and adjusting so workers aren’t close to one another. It all has a trickle-down effect.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

NOAA Fisheries Sets Management Measures for Northeast Groundfish

July 28, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

We are approving the previously proposed Framework 59 and implementing new catch limits for groundfish stocks for the 2020 fishing year (May 1, 2020 – April 30, 2021), including the three stocks managed jointly with Canada. These revised catch limits are based upon the results of stock assessments conducted in 2019.

Framework 59 is adjusting the allocations of the total quota between the commercial and recreational fishery for Gulf of Maine cod and haddock. The proportion of quota allocated to the recreational fishery is increasing from 33.7 percent to 37.5 percent for Gulf of Maine cod, and is increasing from 27.5 percent to 33.9 percent for Gulf of Maine haddock. Management measures for the recreational fishery will be announced in a separate rulemaking.

Read the final rule as filed in the Federal Register and the permit holder bulletin available on our website.

NOAA Fisheries Removes Regulations Implementing the Closed Area I Hook Gear Haddock Special Access Program

July 21, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Today we filed the final rule to eliminate the regulations implementing the Closed Area I Hook Gear Haddock Special Access Program (SAP).

The Omnibus Essential Fish Habitat Amendment eliminated Closed Area I in 2018. As a result, the SAP for this area is unnecessary. The SAP no longer provides access or allows activity otherwise prohibited by any closed or gear restricted area. No vessel has participated in the SAP since the start of fishing year 2018.

Removing the program from the regulations helps to avoid confusion and inconsistency with other regulations.

For more details, please read the final rule as filed in the Federal Register or our bulletin.

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

NOAA Fisheries Seeks Comments on Proposed Rule: Framework 59 to the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan

May 29, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

We are seeking public comment on an action that would set or adjust catch limits for groundfish stocks for the 2020 fishing year (May 1, 2020 – April 30, 2021), including the three stocks managed jointly with Canada. These revised catch limits are based upon the results of stock assessments conducted in 2019.

Framework 59 would also adjust the allocations of the total quota between the commercial and recreational fishery for Gulf of Maine cod and haddock. The proportion of quota allocated to the recreational fishery would increase from 33.7% to 37.5% for Gulf of Maine cod, and would increase from 27.5% to 33.9% for Gulf of Maine haddock.

Read the proposed rule as published in the Federal Register, and submit your comments through the online portal. Comments are due by June 15, 2020.

The Lunacy of Global Seafood Supply Chains

May 21, 2020 — On a recent locked-down day, cars snaked nose-to-tail through downtown. The destination: a seafood “shop,” popped up on a local commercial fishing wharf. For those who made it in time, $15 bought a pound of scallops, or two pounds of haddock, fresh caught, and delivered in vacuum-sealed bags to the car window, exact change please. For the city’s hard-hit fisher folk, here was a rare bit of good news. The pandemic’s shuttering of restaurants has left those who fish, scallop, clam, and lobster for a living without a major market. Boats are docked, crewmembers let go, pain rippling through a web of marine-related businesses.

“A whole big system is falling apart. It’s not just the fishermen but the people who support them,” says Donna Marshall. Marshall heads up Cape Ann Fresh Catch, like a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program, but for local seafood. These days her group is dropping off locally caught haddock, hake, cusk, and lobster to customers’ doorsteps. The work of turning whole fish into neat fillets is being done by laid-off workers from area restaurants, the only paying work they have right now.

Homegrown efforts to keep people in local fish can’t match the collapse of an industry; direct-to-consumer sales are a small fraction of what fishermen sell to restaurants. Still, the seaside solidarity that the crisis has brought to Gloucester matters. “You’re paying your neighbor’s mortgage,” Marshall says. “This person has a family. It’s not some faceless conglomerate.”

Read the full story at The Nation