Saving Seafood

MAINE: Coronavirus Food Assistance Program 2 Now Available for Aquaculture Operations

September 24, 2020 — The Maine Department of Marine Resources sent a bulletin to all aquaculture facilities in the state yesterday announcing an expansion of USDA’s Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) to include eligible aquaculture producers.

President Trump and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced CFP 2 on September 17, 2020. It will provide producers, including eligible aquaculture operations, with financial assistance that gives them the ability to absorb some of the increased marketing costs associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Trump and Biden wage a big battle over one electoral vote in rural Maine

September 24, 2020 — Maine is getting an outsized share of Trump love these days.

The president visited a remote town of 1,500 in June. His son and daughter-in-law, Eric and Lara Trump, have stumped in the state. A lobsterman from tiny Swan’s Island spoke at the Republican National Convention in August.

And the president is showering federal largesse on the state’s pandemic- and tariff-battered fisheries.

“He is very, very concerned on the plight of our fishermen,” former Maine Gov. Paul LePage told a recent rally along Saco Bay with Eric Trump. “He is intent on helping.”

Read the full story at The Los Angeles Times

Maine shellfish farmers gaining confidence with scallops

September 21, 2020 — In Maine, Atlantic sea scallops (Placopecten magellanicus) are one of the most valuable fisheries in U.S. waters, the target of deep-sea draggers and divers on dayboats.

But compared to a seasonal fishery, an aquaculture crop has the key advantage of a year-round supply and steady pricing. In an attempt to build a fledgling scallop farming industry, Maine shellfish farmers started trialling a Japanese technique called ear hanging in 2017. Taking advantage of a sister state agreement with Aomori Prefecture in northern Japan, growers in Maine are working to establish semi-automated commercial aquaculture operations (the Advocate covered these efforts in 2016).

Since then, progress has accelerated. In 2018, community development and business advising firm Coastal Enterprises Inc. (CEI), which has been part of the ear hanging work since 2016, received a grant from the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research for a three-year program to further develop ear hanging in Maine.

CEI purchased three machines from Mutsu Kaden Tokki Co., Ltd., in Mutsu City, Aomori. Five farms have utilized the equipment implementing small-scale commercial trials with several thousand scallops on each farm, while market research by CEI has been gauging the potential demand for ear-hung farmed scallops.

Read the full story at the Global Aquaculture Alliance

Maine lobstermen to harvest $50 million windfall

September 18, 2020 — A wave of government money is heading toward local fishermen hurt by trade wars and COVID-19, and officials say it will arrive sometime in November.

The Trump administration announced on September 9 that Maine lobstermen will receive $50 million because they’ve been hurt by the 25 percent tariffs China slapped on lobster in July 2018. The program pays 50 cents for every pound of lobster landed in 2019, up to $250,000 per person.

“I’m happy the boats got their relief, but the timing is suspect,” said Travis Fifield, Stonington lobster dealer, in an interview. Only fishermen, and no one else in the supply chain, will get part of that $50 million, Fifield said.

The announcement follows the European Union’s decision in late August to drop its tariff on U.S. lobsters for five years. Local seafood dealers have said that will help the lobster industry.

Another $20 million in federal money will be distributed to a broad swath of Maine’s fishing industry, including lobstermen, processors, aquaculturists and dealers. Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) Commissioner Patrick Kelliher said in a memo he hopes the checks are mailed in November. That money, which comes from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), was authorized by Congress under the CARES Act in the spring. To get the money, people have to show they’ve suffered a 35 percent drop in income because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read the full story at the Penobscot Bay Press

Eric Trump tells Maine lobstermen: ‘We will never, ever let you down’

September 18, 2020 — When Seth Dube was growing up in Camp Ellis, Saco’s gritty seaside community boasted a robust ground fishing fleet, but the draggers are mostly gone now, replaced by lobster boats like his. The sixth-generation fisherman blames government overregulation for that industry’s demise, and used to worry lobstering could be next.

That was before President Trump became a friend of the Maine fisherman, Dube said – reopening marine monuments to fishing, delaying environmental rules that would have forced some lobstermen to install greener diesel engines, inking a trade deal allowing tariff-free lobster trade with Europe and giving lobstermen trade relief for lost China sales.

“The Trump administration has become a driving force to protect the fishery,” Dube said at a “Make America Great Again” rally at Camp Ellis on Thursday. “The ground fishermen were regulated out of business along with the Maine shrimp fishery, forcing families to find other jobs and other means to make a living. We can’t let the same thing happen to lobster.”

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Senator Collins Urges Administration to Work to Find Agreement with Canada on Fishing Gray Zone

September 17, 2020 — The following was released by The Office of Senator Susan Collins (R-ME):

U.S. Senator Susan Collins sent a letter to President Trump urging the Administration to work with Maine and Canadian fisheries to find a solution to conservation issues that unfairly harm Maine’s seafood industry.

Lobstermen and fishermen who work in the Gray Zone—an area located approximately ten miles off the coast of Maine between the U.S. and Canada—are growing increasingly frustrated that their Canadian counterparts who fish in the same areas are not required to follow the same regulations, and thus are undermining American protections and threatening the sustainability of the stock.  This disparity undermines American protections, threatens the sustainability of the stocks, and causes dangerous interactions at sea.

“Maine lobstermen and fishermen have been waiting far too long for a resolution to the Gray Zone dispute, and the toll it is taking on their businesses, their safety, and the resources on which their livelihoods depend continues to mount,” wrote Senator Collins.  “I look forward to working with your Administration to address the inequities presented by the Gray Zone in order to protect our seafood harvesters and invaluable natural resources.”

Generations of Maine lobstermen have marked the tails of egg-bearing females they catch with a v-notch and returned them to the water, allowing them to lay eggs, grow larger, and reproduce in future years.  Maine lobstermen also abide by a maximum size limit, tossing back oversized lobsters in order to keep the stock strong.  Because Canada does not impose such conservation measures on its fisheries, a v-notched or oversized lobster tossed back by a Maine lobsterman can be caught by a Canadian lobsterman merely yards away and brought to market.

Read the full release here

Lobstermen may get up to $50 million in pandemic relief funds

September 16, 2020 — Whatever the relationship between China and the United States — particularly the lobster industry — may be, Maine lobstermen are certainly living in interesting times. 

Last week, a scant two months before the upcoming presidential election, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that it would soon release some $530 million appropriated by Congress last March under the CARES Act to assist the U.S. seafood industry and fishermen damaged by retaliatory tariffs. Those tariffs have been imposed primarily by China and the European Union on imports of U.S. live and processed seafood. 

Payments from the Seafood Trade Relief Program vary by species and are based on each fisherman’s 2019 landings multiplied by an amount established by the USDA. For lobstermen, the multiplier is 50 cents per pound. Total payments to Maine lobstermen based on 2019 landings figures could reach $50 million. 

Herring fishermen get 4 cents per pound. Salmon farmers get 16 cents per pound. The total payment is limited to $250,000 to any one fisherman or entity. Some fishermen and most aquaculturists operate as small business corporations or limited liability companies, for all species combined, and payments are subject to federal and state income tax. 

That limit means nothing to the shellfish farmers who grow primarily oysters, mussels, hardshell clams and scallops in Maine. They get nothing, presumably because exports of those species, if any, were not damaged by tariffs. 

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

Maine to Hold a Lottery for Entry Into Scallop Harvest

September 16, 2020 — Maine fishing regulators are using a pair of lotteries to allow people into the state’s lucrative scallop fishing industry.

Maine scallop fishermen harvest the scallops from nearshore waters by hand and by boat. The season takes place every winter.

The scallops have been worth more than $10 per pound at the docks every year for the past eight years. That makes scallops one of the most valuable fisheries in the state.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S. News

Maine scallop fishers will be allowed same quota this season

September 11, 2020 — Maine’s scallop fishers who plan to participate in the coming fishing year will be allowed the same harvesting levels as last season.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources said scallopers who work most of the coast will be limited to 15 gallons per day. Fishers in the Cobscook Bay area will be limited to 10 gallons per day. Those are the same limitations as the 2019-20 scallop season.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

Maine scientists get boost for lobster reproduction study

September 10, 2020 — Marine officials in Maine are going to try to find a more efficient way to examine the size at which female lobsters reach maturity.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources said the work will be funded by a grant of about $100,000 from the 2020 National Sea Grant American Lobster Initiative. The department said the work is important because regulators use the information to predict the growth of female lobsters and estimate egg production.

Read the full story at the Associated Press